glsnake contains non G-rated material

severity 313492 wishlist
thanks

* Michael Gilbert <email address hidden>:

> i'm not sure if this is a debian policy violation or not.

All kinds of people are offended by all kinds of things, and
Debian policy has been not to sit in judgement on content.

The Debian standards for software require that it be free; there is
nothing in the software guidelines or social contract about not being
offensive to anybody.

The needs that come first and foremost for Debian users are freedom and
quality. Applying any other sort of filter to Debian would change that
distribution in a fundamental way.

You have the freedom just to turn off the GLSnake.

> the GLSnake screen saver has a particular snake configuration that
> looks like and is described as an erect penis.

There's also "vagina" and "flaccid penis".

These are abstract works of art, so nobody in his/her sane mind can
sexually offended by that. The amount of abtraction is so high, that it
could be anything. It could be wizard's staff with a knob on the end.

> i really don't want this popping up on my work system because i could
> potentially be held liable if someone should be sexually offended by
> this image.

You have the freedom just to turn off the GLSnake.

Package: xscreensaver
Version: 4.21-3
Followup-For: Bug #313492

Let me just say that when I looked up from my work to see an erect penis
staring me in the face yesterday, I was shocked. Not because I am
offended by silly things like this; I'm very tolerant and laid back actually.
I am disturbed because there are women in my office; and there are no walls.
Anyone could have seen this before I noticed and disabled it. I could
have potentially been reprimanded or fired for sexual harassment or
indecency.

I don't want to try to restrict anyone's freedom of expression, but there
needs to be some kind separation between potentially offensive and benign
material. Perhaps there needs to be a "non-workplace" or
"this-could-get-you-fired" archive for anything that should not be found
in a work environment.

I'm no microsoft supporter, but at least I know that should I choose to
use windows in the workplace that I am not making myself vulnerable to
inadvertent repercussions due to my use of that software. Issues like this
can help sell their FUD if we aren't mindful.

Trust me, I disabled GLSnake instantly. Thank you for the freedom to do
that. Features like this should be categorized so that all users know
what they need to disable before its too late. Either that, or call the
inappropriate snakes dagger and flower petal or something that isn't quite
so obvious. GLSnake in its present form should not be enabled in the
screensaver rotation by default. Also, it should have a warning for
those users who want to enable it.

You mentioned quality. Well, I believe that this issue is a subset of
quality; professionalism. The professional operating systems wouldn't
even think of allowing something like this past their quality standards
-- neither should Debian. Debian should be the pentultimate
professional operating system. In many aspects, it is already, but if
issues like this go unaddressed, we'll never get there.

I don't think that this bug should be wishlist. It is indeed important.
This problem hasn't been resolved, so it shouldn't be marked as such.
Thank you for your consideration.

Best Wishes,
Mike

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (600, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.7-1-k7
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages xscreensaver depends on:
ii libatk1.0-0 1.8.0-4 The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libglade2-0 1:2.4.2-2 library to load .glade files at ru
ii libglib2.0-0 2.6.4-1 The GLib library of C routines
ii libgtk2.0-0 2.6.4-3 The GTK+ graphical user interface
ii libice6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-14 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii libjpeg62 6b-10 The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG
ii libpam0g 0.76-22 Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii libpango1.0-0 1.8.1-1 Layout and rendering of internatio
ii libsm6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-14 X Window System Session Management
ii libx11-6 ...

> Trust me, I disabled GLSnake instantly. Thank you for the freedom to
> do that. Features like this should be categorized so that all users
> know what they need to disable before its too late. Either that, or
> call the inappropriate snakes dagger and flower petal or something that
> isn't quite so obvious.

I'll forward that suggestion upstream - but again: It's all in the eye
of the beholder. Somebody may be offended by a flower petal.

> I don't think that this bug should be wishlist. It is indeed important.

important

   a bug which has a major effect on the usability of a package, without
   rendering it completely unusable to everyone.

Does not qualify.
As it was mentioned before, taking personal offense doesn't count.

reopen 313492

Hi!

As promised earlier on -devel, you'll find the patch, the Fedora guys
seem to use attached.

Wasted quite some time, when trying to reproduce this bug on the wrong
OS...

Yours sincerely,
  Alexander

--
http://learn.to/quote/
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

What do you think of an "offensive" tag to be applied to packages?
Maybe the default search could include ( && ! offensive ).

Justin

tags 313492 wontfix
tags 314984 wontfix
tags 290809 wontfix
severity 328407 wishlist

Source: xscreensaver
Source-Version: 4.24-2

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
xscreensaver, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive:

xscreensaver-gl_4.24-2_i386.deb
  to pool/main/x/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-gl_4.24-2_i386.deb
xscreensaver_4.24-2.diff.gz
  to pool/main/x/xscreensaver/xscreensaver_4.24-2.diff.gz
xscreensaver_4.24-2.dsc
  to pool/main/x/xscreensaver/xscreensaver_4.24-2.dsc
xscreensaver_4.24-2_i386.deb
  to pool/main/x/xscreensaver/xscreensaver_4.24-2_i386.deb

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed. If you
have further comments please address them to <email address hidden>,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Ralf Hildebrandt <email address hidden> (supplier of updated xscreensaver package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing <email address hidden>)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Format: 1.7
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:00:43 +0100
Source: xscreensaver
Binary: xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl
Architecture: source i386
Version: 4.24-2
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Ralf Hildebrandt <email address hidden>
Changed-By: Ralf Hildebrandt <email address hidden>
Description:
 xscreensaver - Automatic screensaver for X
 xscreensaver-gl - GL(Mesa) screen hacks for xscreensaver
Closes: 313492 357907 361686
Changes:
 xscreensaver (4.24-2) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   * apply patch "xscreensaver-getimage-video: the first video frame should not always be grabbed" (closes: #357907)
   * fix pong manpage typos (closes: #361686)
   * apply patch "xscreensaver-4.16-sanitize-hacks.patch" (closes: #313492)
Files:
 64f6d249e52ae44b864c2ad386bf6fd0 1046 x11 optional xscreensaver_4.24-2.dsc
 eb6f73c37de896b14af5e71fc52acaf4 107169 x11 optional xscreensaver_4.24-2.diff.gz
 01dc0e9a407e02454bd3d53c462e43cd 3918868 x11 optional xscreensaver_4.24-2_i386.deb
 c61ae30ad624a2176c8253779599e60f 3414848 x11 optional xscreensaver-gl_4.24-2_i386.deb

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