On Fri, 9 Sep 2011, Joerg Schilling wrote:

Richard Guenther wrote:

...

As of political - do we have to ban each package that contains the FSF manifest (usually as part of their invariant section in their GFDL docs?) ...

Your point of view may depend on the level of "independence" you like to implement and what you like to tolerate. "cdrkit" is e.g. a _result_ of a cruzade against a OSS projekt and thus it seems to be politically incorrect to support it by distributing it - independent of the level of neutrality you like to implement.

If your intention is "Laissez faire", then you may be OK with the FSF manifest.

If you however like to express your independence by disallowing people to use you to advertize for their religious ideas, the FSF manifest seems to be inapropriate.

Yes, that's exactly what needs to be decided. I opt for "Laissez faire" with some extra disambiguation text about openSUSEs stance towards opinions presented via package content in a prominent place. Richard. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Lars Müller wrote:

On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 11:59:40AM +0200, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

Maybe best if one of our English native speakers commnets on this.

As a native English speaker, I do think this is a problem. There are three possible areas of controversy and offence here. Two are easy to change. one is not. 1. "study of God" means that the Christian god is the one and only true god. This is the same as saying all other religions are false. Obviously members of other religions would be justified in taking offense at such a statement. 2. "His Word" means that the Bible is the word of God. This has the same problem as the previous, it is saying that the Christian bible is the legitimate word of god, and by extension that others are wrong. 3. The name "sword" has a violent and aggressive connotation, usually associated with more extreme and evangelical brands of Christianity. I am not longer Christian myself, but when I was a Christian I found the name off-putting. So the name might not only be a problem for non-Christians, but for certain types of Christians as well. However, I think this is a much smaller issue than the description, and is probably not worth making a big deal over. 1 and 2 are easy to fix by simply changing the description to something like: "The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for research and study of the Christian bible and theology." I think that would be neutral and acceptable to me. As an atheist I have no problem with having religous software, the issue is when the openSUSE project has the appearance of endorsing particular religious views or denigrating others. The current description has this appearance, but that is easy to fix. The name is more difficult to fix but in my opinion is not is not a serious enough issue to warrant any action. However, people who have had problems with evangelical Christians in the past, or cultures that have had problems with violence by Christians in the past, may have a more serious issue with the name. So my personal vote would be to change the description to something that does not imply a judgement on the validity of any religious beliefs, while keeping the package. There used to be one or more Muslim prayer plasma widgets offered by KDE:Extra. They don't appear to be there any more. I think the rules should at least be consistent, so if they were removed based on their religious content then Christian software should also not be allowed. On the other hand if they were removed because of a lack of a maintainer or lack of upstream updates then it is irrelevant to the current issue. -Todd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Nelson Marques wrote:

2011/9/9 todd rme :

...

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Lars Müller wrote:

...

On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 11:59:40AM +0200, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

Maybe best if one of our English native speakers commnets on this.

As a native English speaker, I do think this is a problem.  There are three possible areas of controversy and offence here.  Two are easy to change. one is not.

Lets be honest here, this is a cultural issue and not a native language issue. In case you are not aware the Bible is the book translated to more languages in the world, which clearly ends up any discussion about languages.

I am well aware of that, but someone asked for a native speaker's opinion of the description, so I provided it. It seemed like a reasonable request since properly interpreting the full meaning of the description might be hard for non-native speakers.

...

1. "study of God" means that the Christian god is the one and only true god.  This is the same as saying all other religions are false. Obviously members of other religions would be justified in taking offense at such a statement.

First misconception: YOU ARE ASSUMING IT'S A ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE.

It isn't an assumption, the Sword project is created and maintained by a Christian organization for use with the Christian bible.

This brings problems, because if you read the email from Sasha, there's no reference to any religion in particular, this to say that:

The original email is irrelevant, the software is what it is.

2. It's contents, our shit here is about serving contents, not judging contents.

Please re-read the original post and the request I was responding to. The issue was with the description, not the contents.

...

2. "His Word" means that the Bible is the word of God.  This has the same problem as the previous, it is saying that the Christian bible is the legitimate word of god, and by extension that others are wrong.

Could you please tell me where in Sasha's email is the word bible or any reference to Christianity? The rule of openSUSE on this issue should be pretty much neutral... We're not a theological community, we're a technology community, it's not our role to decide who God is, the verecity of his words or whatever men tells that are His words. We either serve this package or we don't, we are not in a condition to judge the contents, that's the priviledge that we delegate to users.

The software is designed for the Christian bible by a Christian organization.

...

3. The name "sword" has a violent and aggressive connotation, usually associated with more extreme and evangelical brands of Christianity.

The word SWORD has a high density in any of the three monotheistic religions. In fact in some cases God is metaphored with a Sword that defends the weak and punishes the guilty.

Lets not be radical... a sword is just a gourmet appliance :)

As I said, I do not consider a big deal, but others very well might considering its historical usage and current connotations within a number of Christian sects.

...

I am not longer Christian myself, but when I was a Christian I found the name off-putting.  So the name might not only be a problem for non-Christians, but for certain types of Christians as well.  However, I think this is a much smaller issue than the description, and is probably not worth making a big deal over.

We don't need to discuss people's beliefs...

The discussion had been framed in terms of non-Christains being offended. I was simply pointing out that certain aspects might offend Christians as well.

...

1 and 2 are easy to fix by simply changing the description to something like:

"The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for research and study of the Christian bible and theology."

You are making a dreadful assumption, Sasha's email doesn't specify religion and can be any of the 3 biggest monotheistic religions. What if you change the description to that and SWORD is about Judaísm. You just offended a lot of people. And even if it is about the bible, we should not change jack on it, because there are quite a few versions of the bible... for example:

Once again, it isn't an assumption, it is the stated goal of the project. Have you looked at their website? I have, I think they are quite explicitly a Christian project.

Who are we to enforce such changes and what cost? Who is the the greatest Theology guy to guide us? Probably no one, so why not leave those issues that are irrelevant to us to the authors ? It's their work, not ours, they should call it and describe as they want... It's not our name that comes there.

I fail to see the relevance, the software appears to support a variety of versions of the Christian bible judging by the website.

...

I think that would be neutral and acceptable to me.  As an atheist I have no problem with having religous software, the issue is when the openSUSE project has the appearance of endorsing particular religious views or denigrating others.  The current description has this appearance, but that is easy to fix.

Neutral brings two options:

1. Serve as any other package 2. Do not serve as any other package that breaks any guideline.

None of such options give us the right to judge the contents, that you can do as your own private thingie, but not as a multi-cultural community, which is what openSUSE is.

I don't recall juding the contents, nor did Sasha. What we were judging was the description of the contents.

...

The name is more difficult to fix but in my opinion is not is not a serious enough issue to warrant any action.  However, people who have had problems with evangelical Christians in the past, or cultures that have had problems with violence by Christians in the past, may have a more serious issue with the name.

Wrong thing to do... None of us who live today has any responsibility on what Roman Catholics did during the Spanish Inquisition, or even on what Christian did during the 1st Cruzade. None of us who live today were victims of it, or commanded/executed such deeds.

You should've been a judge to keep on judging people :)

Who are you to tell people what should and should not offend them?

...

So my personal vote would be to change the description to something that does not imply a judgement on the validity of any religious beliefs, while keeping the package.

All you did in the previous lines was to judge. Maybe you should've started your email with this block of text and forget about the judging. You were the one implying the usage of the word sword (which I will defend it is a gourmet appliance), implying christians in acts of violence... etc etc... where's the neutral non-judging stuff there?

I didn't judge anything. It is a fact that certain Christian sects use the sword imagery in a manner that could cause offence. It is a fact that references to things like the crusades or other acts of violence by Christians in the past have caused offence. You may think that is silly, but that is your judgement.

...

There used to be one or more Muslim prayer plasma widgets offered by KDE:Extra.  They don't appear to be there any more.  I think the rules should at least be consistent, so if they were removed based on their religious content then Christian software should also not be allowed.

Could you please provide physical evidence that such applications have been removed because they were related to Islam? I doubt that as been the reason... What I see packaged dropped is often related to lack of maintainers or no longer updated upstream. You are making a very serious accusation, and I strongly recommend that you provide substancial evidance that they were removed because they were related to Islam, if that is true, than all I can say is that we might be considering to enforce the same policy applied to Sirko Kemter to those who made such decisions because deep in the end we are a multi-cultural community and as such we can't do that kind of bullying based on people's beliefs. It's just not civilized.

...

On the other hand if they were removed because of a lack of a maintainer or lack of upstream updates then it is irrelevant to the current issue.

No, it makes all relevance. If they disappeared because they had no maintainer or not updated, that's one thing, if someone removed them because they were related to be connected to Islam as you implied above, it's really something very serious. That is called discrimination, it's pure plain prejudice and prejudice is far worst than bullying. So my stance is to prejudice is to apply the same rules applied to bullies, ejector seat.

I was not imply anything. I was not accusing anyone of removing it based on religious reasons. I figured it was possible that some people are under the impression that openSUSE has a prohibition against religious software while others do not. To me part of the importance of this discussion is to clarify these policies so everyone knows what should and should not be available. If something was removed based on the misunderstanding that religious content was not allowed, it should be rectified. I was not suggesting a specific anti-muslim bias, but rather a lack of clarity on the rules regarding the subject of religion. You really seem intent to read the absolute worst into everything I write. I was doing my best to provide a fair and neutral assessment of the situation and point out potential issues that some people might not be aware of. All of the implications and judgements you are accusing me of are in your own imagination. Please calm down and try to assume good faith on the part of others. -Todd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 11:59:40AM +0200, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Of course, this may equally apply to policitcal views or offensive words.

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, be inviting and open for everyone (and we're quite good at that already). But I'm not sure if we should provide a stage for non-technical biased views. Even less so for those with a mission. Thus, the question I'd like to ask is whether we should allow such formulations or not. Do we already have policy for that or do we care at all?

Your proposal in general sounds good. As an open project we should ensure to position us non offending to any particular social group.

After reading the quoted description a second time I'm no longer sure if this particular sentence might affront for example atheistic people.

As contrast I would count a phrase like "the only God and His true Words" as non acceptable.

Maybe best if one of our English native speakers commnets on this.

Lars English speaker here. I doubt anybody will care that much, and if they do they can complain, and we'll explain it. We could also make a new repo for just

On Friday, September 09, 2011 03:29:32 AM Lars Müller wrote: these things. Could call it "Skydaddy" or "Beer Volcano." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am 09.09.2011 17:57, schrieb Lars Müller:

No new repo. And no new mailing lists please!;)

+1

From the feedback of this well discussed thread I'm sure we've found a way to go.

It seems to work so far...

The current description gets some polishing and then we can continue with the real work.

I really hope so. Get the maintainers already the needed information?

Thanks all for your participation and help!

Well, it was kinda fun for me. It´s interesting to learn a bit about other mate´s thoughts about religion. _____________________________________________________________________________- In general: I really hope we can clear such things faster in future and without a full mailbox ;-) Kim -- -o) Kim Leyendecker /\\ openSUSE Ambassador, openSUSE Wiki Team DE _\_v http://www.opensuse.org - Linux for open minds -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am 09.09.2011 18:13, schrieb Roger Luedecke:

Is this really settled though? There are people who find the very existence of religious texts offensive to begin with. This solution may not please everyone.

If you start with this argument, you can also say something like: I think the existence of Konqueror offends me because I´m a Firefox-user. As long as the software doesn´t hurt any feelings (Please note: If you really don´t like religion, why you should install the bible-software then? There´s no sense to me at all.) and doesn´t discriminate anyone, it should be no problem at all. Again: If you (or anything other) have a problem with it, you just shouldn´t install it. No one´s forcing you to use it ;-) Kim -- -o) Kim Leyendecker /\\ openSUSE Ambassador, openSUSE Wiki Team DE _\_v http://www.opensuse.org - Linux for open minds -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Sep 09, 11 09:59:54 -0700, Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Friday, September 09, 2011 09:47:28 AM Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

If you start with this argument, you can also say something like: I think the existence of Konqueror offends me because I??m a Firefox-user. [...] Kim I agree with the idea. It just seems that there was a push to assure nobody was offended. Which seems frankly impossible. While were at it, can we get Zekr included?

Can we get emacs included? It contains a man page about sex. Ouch. We don't have the option to offend nobody. cheers, JW- -- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de back to ascii! __/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 __/ (____/ /\ (/) | _____________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, J.Guild, F.Imendoerffer, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg), Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany SuSE. Supporting Linux since 1992. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 September 2011 20:47:28 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

Again: If you (or anything other) have a problem with it, you just shouldn´t install it. No one´s forcing you to use it ;-)

Well what if somebody suggested the inclusion of Nazi texts in openSUSE? Would it be then valid to say "if you do not want it, just do not install it"? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

This discussion is now officially "long". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law sigh, JW- On Sep 09, 11 10:45:36 -0700, Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Friday, September 09, 2011 10:35:45 AM Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 20:47:28 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

Again: If you (or anything other) have a problem with it, you just shouldn??t install it. No one??s forcing you to use it ;-)

Well what if somebody suggested the inclusion of Nazi texts in openSUSE? Would it be then valid to say "if you do not want it, just do not install it"? Thats a good point... and a bible or quran has about as much hate speech as Mein Kampf. Thus I would propose a repository for books and such... that way it would be seen like a library.

-- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de back to ascii! __/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 __/ (____/ /\ (/) | _____________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, J.Guild, F.Imendoerffer, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg), Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany SuSE. Supporting Linux since 1992. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

My honest answer: 1. If we want people to use our services, we should allow it for everything which is legal, this includes package and distribution of software which implies religious/political views... 2. We should make default install pattern with such software, I strongly discourage it. 3. We if want to forbid people of making religious/political comments in public resources like forums and mailing lists, sure we can live with it, our common denominator in openSUSE is technology and free software... Bashing down software because it's political or religious... I don't think so... Should bash the FSF down? Aren't they above all a political organization ? :) There needs to be common sense... just that... NM -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

2011/9/9 Ilya Chernykh :

On Friday 09 September 2011 20:47:28 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

Again: If you (or anything other) have a problem with it, you just shouldn´t install it. No one´s forcing you to use it ;-)

Well what if somebody suggested the inclusion of Nazi texts in openSUSE? Would it be then valid to say "if you do not want it, just do not install it"?

First of all, if you refer to Mein Kampf, you are breaking the law in Germany, Portugal and many other countries... So that's more of a legal problem. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am Freitag 09 September 2011, 20:19:08 schrieb Kim Leyendecker:

Am 09.09.2011 19:35, schrieb Ilya Chernykh:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 20:47:28 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

...

Again: If you (or anything other) have a problem with it, you just shouldn´t install it. No one´s forcing you to use it;-)

Well what if somebody suggested the inclusion of Nazi texts in openSUSE? Would it be then valid to say

What would you define as "Nazi-texts"? Just to form a stronger country, or also the rassictic, anti-semitic ideologies?

In general I would say, no! Because I really hate the Nazi´s ideology and I think it´s 1000x more then offend to try to *kill* a whole* populace.

...

"if you do not want it, just do not install it"?

Another question: Source code often comes along with comments. Do you want to control every source file? The comments could be offend.

Kim

All these threads in the last days: I don't understand: The OP starts with an item that could be discussed (systemd, and actually this bible thing). Then a discussion starts and leads to terms that at have nothing to do with the original item. Could you please stop that? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 9/9/2011 1:35 PM, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

On Friday 09 September 2011 20:47:28 Kim Leyendecker wrote:

...

Again: If you (or anything other) have a problem with it, you just shouldn´t install it. No one´s forcing you to use it ;-)

Well what if somebody suggested the inclusion of Nazi texts in openSUSE? Would it be then valid to say "if you do not want it, just do not install it"?

What, you'd rather everyone forget the lessons learned so incalculably tragically? Of course Nazi text's should be either allowed or not according to ONLY the same rules as text about anything else, which are purely technical, organizational, practical. If we don't have text about say the changing salinity of sea water over time, it's only because opensuse aims to be an operating system not a library. That would be the only reason to prevent Nazi text from residing in a repo. Because it has nothing to do with the operating system, not because it has something to do with actions or people or ideologies one or more of us finds objectionable. It's more important for good people to study evil things than to try to forget them or pretend they don't exist or otherwise avoid thinking about them. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am 10.09.2011 08:41, schrieb Ilya Chernykh:

On Saturday 10 September 2011 08:45:41 Brian K. White wrote:

...

...

What, you'd rather everyone forget the lessons learned so incalculably tragically? Of course Nazi text's should be either allowed or not according to ONLY the same rules as text about anything else, which are purely technical, organizational, practical. If we don't have text about say the changing salinity of sea water over time, it's only because opensuse aims to be an operating system not a library. That would be the only reason to prevent Nazi text from residing in a repo. Because it has nothing to do with the operating system, not because it has something to do with actions or people or ideologies one or more of us finds objectionable. It's more important for good people to study evil things than to try to forget them or pretend they don't exist or otherwise avoid thinking about them. Well, if Nazi parties were not banned and their propaganda prohibited, they would already come to power in some European countries, for sure.

Maybe. But this has nothing to do with the actually topic of this thread. Could we please stop that discussion about Nazi-texts in an operating system? Kim -- -o) Kim Leyendecker /\\ openSUSE Ambassador, openSUSE Wiki Team DE _\_v http://www.opensuse.org - Linux for open minds -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

Well what if somebody suggested the inclusion of Nazi texts in openSUSE?

It would be illegal in my home country (Austria), for example, so that's quite another story. Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer || SUSE || Director Product Management -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

* Basil Chupin [09-09-11 21:52]:

On 10/09/11 02:13, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Is this really settled though? There are people who find the very existence of religious texts offensive to begin with. This solution may not please everyone.

I for one do not think that it is settled at all.

To begin with, why has there been a request to include this piece of software in FACTORY?

If this organisation is writing some software to push their religious beliefs then they should do so directly through their own efforts and not request to have it included as part of a Linux distribution: create a 1-click installation process for this software and if people who want to use it then they install it directly from that site.

There is already some tearing of the hair and gnashing of the teeth in trying to keep the size of what is to be put onto the Live CDs and/or the DVDs and now someone wants to add some religious program to Factory - after which it will flow on to the installation media which is already overcrowded.

Which other distros have had the same request foisted on them and what have been their responses?

It appears too difficult to look at the project and see what it is all about. Instead just jump in and rant in every direction. Perhaps they want to take over the world and this is their beginning, doh from www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jst <quote> The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools-- covered by the GNU General Public License-- that allow programmers and Bible societies to write new Bible software more quickly and easily. We also create Bible study software for all readers, students, scholars, and translators of the Bible, and have a growing collection of over 200 texts in over 50 languages. </quote> All the vocalization and dramatization which has occurred today is nothing of substance. They are not proposing that we do anything but provide a package that allows one to write software of a particular nature. openSUSE already provides software that could be used for the same purpose, but not "labeled" for religious purposes. WHAT is all to todo/dodo about. Swallow it, people, and step up to the table! -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 4:53 AM, Nelson Marques wrote:

2011/9/10 Patrick Shanahan :

...

* Basil Chupin [09-09-11 21:52]:

...

On 10/09/11 02:13, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Is this really settled though? There are people who find the very existence of religious texts offensive to begin with. This solution may not please everyone.

I for one do not think that it is settled at all.

To begin with, why has there been a request to include this piece of software in FACTORY?

If this organisation is writing some software to push their religious beliefs then they should do so directly through their own efforts and not request to have it included as part of a Linux distribution: create a 1-click installation process for this software and if people who want to use it then they install it directly from that site.

There is already some tearing of the hair and gnashing of the teeth in trying to keep the size of what is to be put onto the Live CDs and/or the DVDs and now someone wants to add some religious program to Factory - after which it will flow on to the installation media which is already overcrowded.

Which other distros have had the same request foisted on them and what have been their responses?

It appears too difficult to look at the project and see what it is all about.  Instead just jump in and rant in every direction.  Perhaps they want to take over the world and this is their beginning, doh

from www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jst <quote> The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools-- covered by the GNU General Public License-- that allow programmers and Bible societies to write new Bible software more quickly and easily. We also create Bible study software for all readers, students, scholars, and translators of the Bible, and have a growing collection of over 200 texts in over 50 languages. </quote>

All the vocalization and dramatization which has occurred today is nothing of substance.  They are not proposing that we do anything but provide a package that allows one to write software of a particular nature. openSUSE already provides software that could be used for the same purpose, but not "labeled" for religious purposes.

WHAT is all to todo/dodo about.

Swallow it, people, and step up to the table!

+1000^23

-- Nelson Marques

/* http://www.marques.so   nmo.marques@gmail.com */

Wait, weren't you the one who was ranting at me for even daring to suggest that the project had anything remotely to do with Christianity, obviously without you having taken a look at the project to see what it is all about? -Todd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

To begin with, why has there been a request to include this piece of software in FACTORY?

It's pretty much an open process ([1]) and anyone can do it. [1] - http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_contribute_to_Factory

If this organisation is writing some software to push their religious beliefs then they should do so directly through their own efforts and not request to have it included as part of a Linux distribution: create a 1-click installation process for this software and if people who want to use it then they install it directly from that site.

We should be careful dude, and since we're looking at it, we should also warn the people on Fedora[2], Debian[3], Ubuntu[4], etc about this new world domination conspiracy. We must not fall! [2] - http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=3896 [3] - http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=sword&searchon=names&suite=all§ion=all [4] - https://launchpad.net/sword Now the big question is... what madness will take over people when someone submits gnomesword (a GNOME frontend for sword) ? The world lost man...

There is already some tearing of the hair and gnashing of the teeth in trying to keep the size of what is to be put onto the Live CDs and/or the DVDs and now someone wants to add some religious program to Factory - after which it will flow on to the installation media which is already overcrowded.

I think no one wants this package in the default patterns and media, and it's totally understandable because openSUSE isn't a Theological organization. I don't believe the license is offending. I mean, if you look into Koji, Launchpad, etc... Why would it be so strange to be in oS:Factory or that we even got a request for a package that lives for ages in other distro's ?

Which other distros have had the same request foisted on them and what have been their responses?

Read above. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Ciaran Farrell wrote:

Some examples of content which are not permissable:

...

* mp3 files (patent encumbered

Not correct: The technology of packing and unpacking _may_ be covered by patents (depending on how you do it), the files are not. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Is this thread what it meant to be? Starting a discussion about not offending people with biased religious views, taking neutral stance, but using words like 'bedtime story', fairytales, imaginary beings, ... seems to be a frustrated try that would be better to never happen. I must say that It is a funny rationale, to not say tragic. On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Michael Meeks wrote:

On Fri, 2011-09-09 at 12:50 +0200, Ciaran Farrell wrote:

...

Some examples of content which are not permissable:     * Comic book art files     * Religious text     * mp3 files (patent encumbered

       It should be pointed out that SWORD itself is not a religious text, it is software for reading such texts :-) Indeed, I have no doubt it could be made Cthulhu compatible (or whatever) with little effort. I suspect including religious texts offends some minority of militant athiests / secularists who make it a hot topic. Including such material in proportion to its relevance seems entirely reasonable to me (as a biased Christian of course ;-)

       Then again - if people are easily offended they probably need to read the 'fortune -o' output in a tight loop until a healthy sense of humour, and an appreciation for the ridiculous starts to develop :-)

       ATB,

               Michael.

--  michael.meeks@novell.com  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot

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Le 09/09/2011 14:48, Christian Boltz a écrit :

Maybe the official upstream description would be better - it sounds more neutral IMHO. From http://www.crosswire.org/sword/ :

| The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. | Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools-- covered by the GNU | General Public License-- that allow programmers and Bible societies to write | new Bible software more quickly and easily.

your are the best, Christian (don't forget the comma :-) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgxog7_clip-l-ombre-et-la-lumiere-3-bad-pig... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGgv_ZFtV14 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 14:48:48 +0200 Christian Boltz wrote:

Hello,

on Freitag, 9. September 2011, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

...

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, [...]

I have no problem with including religious content in Factory (as long as it isn't installed by default - that would be something different IMHO).

However, I had to smile a bit about the package summary:

+Summary: Framework for manipulating Bible texts ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Now _that_ might indeed offend some people. I'd s/manipulate/edit/ ;-)

The full %description in the SR/spec is:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word. + +The SWORD Bible Framework allows easy manipulation of Bible texts, commentaries, +lexicons, dictionaries, etc. Many frontends are build using this framework. +An installed module set may be shared between any frontend using the framework.

Maybe the official upstream description would be better - it sounds more neutral IMHO. From http://www.crosswire.org/sword/ :

| The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. | Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools-- covered by the GNU | General Public License-- that allow programmers and Bible societies to write | new Bible software more quickly and easily.

Regards,

Christian Boltz Hi +1 from me to update to the upstream description.

-- Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop up 3 days 13:02, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.11 GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 280.13 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 September 2011 17:41:39 Peter Nikolic wrote:

If someone wants to write software be it for bible koran or whatever othre book your beliefs align with then fine but not to be included in the main distro

By the way, Ubuntu includes not only software, but also Quran in several languages and Muslim texts. This triggered extensive discussion when those Muslim texts (including Quran in Russian) were discovered as installed by default in Russian localized remix, Runtu. Some people saw propaganda of Islam in these texts, while some Muslims defended the inclusion. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 10/09/11 01:10, Peter Nikolic wrote:

On Friday 09 September 2011 14:58:53 Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 17:41:39 Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

If someone wants to write software be it for bible koran or whatever othre book your beliefs align with then fine but not to be included in the main distro By the way, Ubuntu includes not only software, but also Quran in several languages and Muslim texts. This triggered extensive discussion when those Muslim texts (including Quran in Russian) were discovered as installed by default in Russian localized remix, Runtu. Some people saw propaganda of Islam in these texts, while some Muslims defended the inclusion.

That is why i stand by the NO religeous texts included in the main distro if wanted then yes as an extra that is installable via the net or downloaded on a seperate extras disc

Pete .

My sentiments exactly. BC -- Any experiment in life will be at your own experience. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 10/09/11 12:41, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Basil Chupin [09-09-11 22:07]:

...

On 10/09/11 01:10, Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 14:58:53 Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 17:41:39 Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

If someone wants to write software be it for bible koran or whatever othre book your beliefs align with then fine but not to be included in the main distro By the way, Ubuntu includes not only software, but also Quran in several languages and Muslim texts. This triggered extensive discussion when those Muslim texts (including Quran in Russian) were discovered as installed by default in Russian localized remix, Runtu. Some people saw propaganda of Islam in these texts, while some Muslims defended the inclusion. That is why i stand by the NO religeous texts included in the main distro if wanted then yes as an extra that is installable via the net or downloaded on a seperate extras disc

Pete . My sentiments exactly. And WHAT particular "text" are your sentiments referring to in this instance? Or are we diverged from the original topic? I don't see anywhere that crosswire wants to include texts in our distribution, or even software. They just want to have it in factory????

And why should they even do this?: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_contribute_to_Factory#How_to_add_a_ne... It's open-house, a free-for-all - so why ask?

The sky is falling, said chicken-little.

You have a way of exaggerating things, Patrick. BC -- Any experiment in life will be at your own experience. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 10/09/11 16:39, Peter Nikolic wrote:

On Saturday 10 September 2011 03:41:54 Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Basil Chupin [09-09-11 22:07]:

...

On 10/09/11 01:10, Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 14:58:53 Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 17:41:39 Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

If someone wants to write software be it for bible koran or whatever othre book your beliefs align with then fine but not to be included in the main distro By the way, Ubuntu includes not only software, but also Quran in several languages and Muslim texts. This triggered extensive discussion when those Muslim texts (including Quran in Russian) were discovered as installed by default in Russian localized remix, Runtu. Some people saw propaganda of Islam in these texts, while some Muslims defended the inclusion. That is why i stand by the NO religeous texts included in the main distro if wanted then yes as an extra that is installable via the net or downloaded on a seperate extras disc

Pete . My sentiments exactly. And WHAT particular "text" are your sentiments referring to in this instance? Or are we diverged from the original topic? I don't see anywhere that crosswire wants to include texts in our distribution, or even software.

...

They just want to have it in factory???? Well AFAIAC the answr is still NO NO NON

Pete

Unfortunately, Peter, in their haste to be "everything to everyone" those who created Factory's purpose and wording (here: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_contribute_to_Factory#How_to_add_a_ne... ) have made Pandora knickerless and therefore it is now very hard to protect her honour. BC -- Any experiment in life will be at your own experience. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 10/09/11 18:09, Peter Nikolic wrote:

On Saturday 10 September 2011 08:03:11 Basil Chupin wrote:

...

...

On Saturday 10 September 2011 03:41:54 Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Basil Chupin [09-09-11 22:07]:

...

On 10/09/11 01:10, Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

On Friday 09 September 2011 14:58:53 Ilya Chernykh wrote: > On Friday 09 September 2011 17:41:39 Peter Nikolic wrote: >> If someone wants to write software be it for bible koran or whatever >> othre book your beliefs align with then fine but not to be included >> in the main distro > By the way, Ubuntu includes not only software, but also Quran in > several languages and Muslim texts. This triggered extensive > discussion when those Muslim texts (including Quran in Russian) were > discovered as installed by default in Russian localized remix, Runtu. > Some people saw propaganda of Islam in these texts, while some > Muslims defended the inclusion. That is why i stand by the NO religeous texts included in the main distro if wanted then yes as an extra that is installable via the net or downloaded on a seperate extras disc

Pete . My sentiments exactly. And WHAT particular "text" are your sentiments referring to in this instance? Or are we diverged from the original topic? I don't see anywhere that crosswire wants to include texts in our distribution, or even software.

They just want to have it in factory???? Well AFAIAC the answr is still NO NO NON

Pete Unfortunately, Peter, in their haste to be "everything to everyone"

On 10/09/11 16:39, Peter Nikolic wrote: those who created Factory's purpose and wording (here: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_contribute_to_Factory#How_to_add_a_n ew_package_to_Factory ) have made Pandora knickerless and therefore it is now very hard to protect her honour.

BC Hummmmm seems ideal time to start selling chastity belts then :-) ..

Pete .

Too late, Pete, too late...... BC -- Any experiment in life will be at your own experience. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

2011/9/9 Ilya Chernykh :

On Friday 09 September 2011 17:53:15 Nelson Marques wrote:

...

The holy texts from any religion aren't offensive, the interpretations man give them might be offensive.

This is not always true. There are extremely offensive texts, including (but not limited to) Christian tradition, so that they would be probably quickly banned as extremist if someone wrote anything similar today.

Could you please provide a transcription of one? I've only read one of the several versions of the Bible (the one edited by the Vatican, as I was raised as a Roman Catholic) and all I can say is that I've seen far more offensive comments in pieces of software like Star Office than I've seen on the bible. It's just plain curiosity... You can answer in private, this is just something not worth for the list. NM -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 09/09/2011 04:02 PM, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

On Friday 09 September 2011 17:53:15 Nelson Marques wrote:

...

The holy texts from any religion aren't offensive, the interpretations man give them might be offensive. This is not always true. There are extremely offensive texts, including (but not limited to) Christian tradition, so that they would be probably quickly banned as extremist if someone wrote anything similar today.

If ANYONE thinks the bible is not offensive, I suggest he/she should read this: "Ken's Guide to the BIBLE". http://www.amazon.com/Kens-Guide-Bible-Ken-Smith/dp/0922233179/ It is an eye-opener, with rock-solid quotations! Child abuse, murder, rape, genocide... everything is in there. If anybody really wants to believe in this - fine - but it should stay safely locked away in their heads. Or the next thing would be something like this: zypper <whatever> Resolving package dependencies... 5 Problems: Problem: patch:xzy conflicts with abc Problem: patch:abc conflicts with wvu Solution 1: install xzy Solution 2: install abc Solution 3: "What would Jesus do?" R. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 09/09/2011 06:50 AM, madworm_de.novell@spitzenpfeil.org wrote:

If ANYONE thinks the bible is not offensive, I suggest he/she should read this:

"Ken's Guide to the BIBLE".

http://www.amazon.com/Kens-Guide-Bible-Ken-Smith/dp/0922233179/

It is an eye-opener, with rock-solid quotations!

my 2 cents: If you are really interested in Christianity I suggest you consult a theologian and not spam some junk from amazon.com. Or have I misjudged the wisdom of 'Ken'. My vote is for freedom of speech American style. Allow everything :D. People should know that openSUSE including packages has nothing to do with endorsing any ideology or politics. Package should be included or not based on how many people would use/want it, because it will take up space on DVD, no? cheers -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 3:52 PM, John McInnes wrote:

Package should be included or not based on how many people would use/want it, because it will take up space on DVD, no?

The decision to accept to factory and thus the main repos is indendent of the decision to put it on the DVD. That is everything on the DVD is in factory (or so I believe), but not everything in factory is on the DVD. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 September 2011 18:54:07 Sankar P wrote:

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 3:29 PM, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

Hello everyone,

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Of course, this may equally apply to policitcal views or offensive words.

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, be inviting and open for everyone (and we're quite good at that already). But I'm not sure if we should provide a stage for non-technical biased views. Even less so for those with a mission. Thus, the question I'd like to ask is whether we should allow such formulations or not. Do we already have policy for that or do we care at all?

I personally don't see any reason why any person should feel offended at that description. It is not speaking ill of any other religion/atheists. It just mentions about God and his word. Whoever wants the application can install it. If the description explicitly abuses some other religion in derogatory words, say, "Those who don't believe in God's word will be punished" it is wrong. However the words that are mentioned are very normal.

If we have to drop packages because it may _offend_ someone, we will run into a lot of problems. We have a package named Evolution. If some creationist gets offended by this package name and asks for it to be dropped, wouldn't it look absurd ? What we are discussing here is just the same issue but with the sides changed. I mean, if a person doesn't believe in God, why should he feel offended by mere words ("God and his word") that mean nothing to him/her.

Now this is getting silly

If someone wants to package a software for analyzing Hitler's / Ravanan's / Bin Laden's words, we should be open for it. People whoever want to use it can install and use it. The only thing we should be bothered is to see if the description explicitly abuses anyone else. As long as we are not installing these package by default, none should get angry. My 2 cents :-)

Here we are always having stuff left off the DVD for lack of space and here we go trying to justify putting more stuff that has zero to do with the OS on and in the process end up having to loose something else because of it talk bout thick or what If someone wants their bible thumper special on Linux fine i could care less been there seen the b*****t and got out while i stil had my head to myself but it must be in an Extra repo and downloaded if wanted ele we will be needing to make the distro 2 dvd's next not good at all . Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.10-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 07:40 up 6 days 13:10, 4 users, load average: 0.06, 0.05, 0.00 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am 09.09.2011 22:50, schrieb Pascal Bleser:

On 2011-09-09 11:59:40 (+0200), Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

...

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like: [...]

Not really coming up to a solution or decision, unfortunately.

What the hell, really.

I really, deeply hate religions, all of them, but that's my very personal opinion, just like anyone who believes may have her belief as her personal opinion. It is not relevant in any way -- I'm just explaining that personal philosophical or political opinions shouldn't matter for things we do as a project.

And to those who'd want to keep it out: really? I mean, really? Censorship is any better?

IMHO the best solution would be to just take it into Factory based on its technical aspects (just as with any other package that wants to go into Factory), but would change the %description to Michael's proposal, specifically because it is a lot more accurate.

And be done with it.

Cmon folks, it's a project, it's a community (whatever that means), which very obviously means making compromises.

And while on a personal note I agree with every single bit of what has been said against religions on this thread, this is really no place for acting like that. It's fine to discuss on #opensuse-chat, because hey, what the hell;), but offending groups of people on the project mailing-list, nah, really, just don't, it's not nice nor funny at all.

Speak out freely, of course, but don't start dissing part of the community on their personal opinions. One may only do that with trolls;)

+1 totally agree! -- -o) Kim Leyendecker /\\ openSUSE Ambassador, openSUSE Wiki Team DE _\_v http://www.opensuse.org - Linux for open minds -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Friday, September 09, 2011 02:18:55 PM Detlef Steuer wrote:

Could we close this thread, please?

It`s Friday night, ok, but no need to blow up an non-existing problem as it happens right now.

I'm sure, when and if a package crosses the undefined red line we as a community will act wisely ;-) and discuss then, not now.

Have a nice weekend Detlef

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 00:06:53 +0300

auxsvr wrote:

...

On Friday 09 of September 2011 11:59:40 Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

Hello everyone,

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Of course, this may equally apply to policitcal views or offensive words.

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, be inviting and open for everyone (and we're quite good at that already). But I'm not sure if we should provide a stage for non-technical biased views. Even less so for those with a mission. Thus, the question I'd like to ask is whether we should allow such formulations or not. Do we already have policy for that or do we care at all?

Did you just call the Bible a "bedtime story", which offends millions of Christians, including me, while at the same time proposing to maintain openSUSE as a religiously neutral, technical community?

It would have been wiser for one to adhere to their own suggestion first, then try to educate the rest. I've seen numerous people keep pushing their own religion in openSUSE mailing lists and mocking the religions of others, including in this thread, and rarely seen the arbiters of neutrality intervene. I wonder, why is it so?

Kind regards, Peter Agreed. The solution to change some of the descriptive language of the package to resolve some of its "charge" is adequate. I like that this and other software will be made available... I may find use for this, and maybe after reviewing adapt it to another project. I personally think study aids and e- book should have their own "public_library" repository, but that is a discussion for another time; probably after 12.1 is released.

Om namah Shivaaya! Roger Luedecke openSUSE Ambassador -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 of September 2011 18:01:13 Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Friday, September 09, 2011 02:06:53 PM auxsvr wrote:

...

It would have been wiser for one to adhere to their own suggestion first, then try to educate the rest. I've seen numerous people keep pushing their own religion in openSUSE mailing lists and mocking the religions of others, including in this thread, and rarely seen the arbiters of neutrality intervene. I wonder, why is it so? Neutrality != censorship.

I never even hinted at censorship. Some indication that people that claim they care about neutrality would merely discourage such behaviour would suffice for me. Apparently, even this is too much to ask from them. Kind regards, Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 09/10/2011 12:33 AM, Brian K. White wrote:

On 9/9/2011 5:59 AM, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

Hello everyone,

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Of course, this may equally apply to policitcal views or offensive words.

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, be inviting and open for everyone (and we're quite good at that already). But I'm not sure if we should provide a stage for non-technical biased views. Even less so for those with a mission. Thus, the question I'd like to ask is whether we should allow such formulations or not. Do we already have policy for that or do we care at all?

Rephrase the description to the upstream description or similar one that makes no implied judgements.

Keep the package wherever, and for the same reasons, that we keep games.

I personally have zero use for any games, but there are plenty in the distro. They don't bother me existing. I don't even mind if a few are installed by default as long as they don't take up much space.

Religious apps? I have no use for them either, and although I'm absolutely atheist and have quite firm and quite unflattering opinions of anyone who actually believes any of that nonsense, or even allows for it's possibility in any real way, the main reason I have no use for such apps is more along the lines of why I have no use for say, baseball fantasy league management apps or quilting pattern database apps.

I have no problem with those apps existing because they ARE things some people do with their computers.

It doesn't matter that I don't do that with my computer, it just matters that anyone anywhere for any reason does. They don't need to be validated. Merely that they exist and that someone want's to use it is all the validation necessary, other than the normal requirements and guidelines and cost/benefit things that apply to all packages.

Even software that's designed solely to hack other systems is valid, neutral software in itself, since it's the most important security study and testing material. No software or even text is inherently evil. You could use bash (an equally violently named software) to persue all the same goals as sword.

Even though I think a disbelief in any religion is fundamentally different than believing one religion vs another, and would argue that it's perfectly valid to criticize any believer and treat them exactly as you would treat anyone else who has demonstrated that they are insane or incompetent or out of touch in any other way, none of that really touches on whether something like a software package like this, even if it included the text, should be granted or disallowed a home in a distributions software repositories.

As far as I'm concerned, treat this package exactly like Tux Racer.

The description should be changed only because it does essentially insult everyone else who doesn't happen to share the authors favorite fantasy. It will be displayed by yast, an opensuse product, to all users, before they opt-in to such nonsense. The upstream description doesn't have that problem. At least it fails to bother me and perhaps by now you get a sense that I am quick to be offended by any attempts by any religious entities to tell me anything.

This is already in education and have sword installed along with bibletime because one is useless without the other. Although I am a christian I see no need to have sword in openSuSE Oh look using the search box in the download page I found http://software.opensuse.org/search/download?base=openSUSE%3AFactory&file=Education%2FopenSUSE_Factory%2Fi586%2Fsword-1.6.2-1.28.i586.rpm&query=sword -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday 10 September 2011 15:23:43 Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:57:24 AM Dale Ritchey wrote:

...

On 09/10/2011 12:33 AM, Brian K. White wrote:

...

On 9/9/2011 5:59 AM, Sascha Peilicke wrote:

...

Hello everyone,

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Of course, this may equally apply to policitcal views or offensive words.

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, be inviting and open for everyone (and we're quite good at that already). But I'm not sure if we should provide a stage for non-technical biased views. Even less so for those with a mission. Thus, the question I'd like to ask is whether we should allow such formulations or not. Do we already have policy for that or do we care at all?

Rephrase the description to the upstream description or similar one that makes no implied judgements.

Keep the package wherever, and for the same reasons, that we keep games.

I personally have zero use for any games, but there are plenty in the distro. They don't bother me existing. I don't even mind if a few are installed by default as long as they don't take up much space.

Religious apps? I have no use for them either, and although I'm absolutely atheist and have quite firm and quite unflattering opinions of anyone who actually believes any of that nonsense, or even allows for it's possibility in any real way, the main reason I have no use for such apps is more along the lines of why I have no use for say, baseball fantasy league management apps or quilting pattern database apps.

I have no problem with those apps existing because they ARE things some people do with their computers.

It doesn't matter that I don't do that with my computer, it just matters that anyone anywhere for any reason does. They don't need to be validated. Merely that they exist and that someone want's to use it is all the validation necessary, other than the normal requirements and guidelines and cost/benefit things that apply to all packages.

Even software that's designed solely to hack other systems is valid, neutral software in itself, since it's the most important security study and testing material. No software or even text is inherently evil. You could use bash (an equally violently named software) to persue all the same goals as sword.

Even though I think a disbelief in any religion is fundamentally different than believing one religion vs another, and would argue that it's perfectly valid to criticize any believer and treat them exactly as you would treat anyone else who has demonstrated that they are insane or incompetent or out of touch in any other way, none of that really touches on whether something like a software package like this, even if it included the text, should be granted or disallowed a home in a distributions software repositories.

As far as I'm concerned, treat this package exactly like Tux Racer.

The description should be changed only because it does essentially insult everyone else who doesn't happen to share the authors favorite fantasy. It will be displayed by yast, an opensuse product, to all users, before they opt-in to such nonsense. The upstream description doesn't have that problem. At least it fails to bother me and perhaps by now you get a sense that I am quick to be offended by any attempts by any religious entities to tell me anything.

This is already in education and have sword installed along with bibletime because one is useless without the other. Although I am a christian I see no need to have sword in openSuSE Oh look using the search box in the download page I found

http://software.opensuse.org/search/download?base=openSUSE%3AFactory&file=E

ducation%2FopenSUSE_Factory%2Fi586%2Fsword-1.6.2-1.28.i586.rpm&query=sword If its already in some repo... then why put it in factory? Sounds like it got categorized, and filed. I say HELL NO, to letting religions push propoganda; the attempt to move it into a more mainstream repository looks plain to me as an attempt to proselytize. If its in Education, then that is EXACTLY where it should remain; heck, I forgot we had an edu repo... that sort of thing is exactly what I was talking about; books and study aids go into their own library or educational repo.

+1 Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.10-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 08:43 up 7 days 14:13, 4 users, load average: 0.09, 0.03, 0.01 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:30:52 +0530, John McInnes wrote:

So billions of people are insane?

afraid so; but not because of the reasons mentioned here. how else could one explain that everybody wants more and more, individually and as groups and nations, even though it's obvious this ruins the whole planet? and quite a few other reasons; some of these are related to "religions," but that's not the religions' fault.

[revised a few times to be more diplomatic.. ---> ] Hmm but isn't Atheism is a religion all its own, with leaders, followers, mantra, faith, and yes bigots?? I know some rabid Richard Dawkins followers, the irony is always lost on them.

of course it is. pendulum movement: there were centuries of so-called religions abusing their influence and power, now it goes to the other extreme. sort of natural law, i think. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 09/10/2011 12:06 PM, phanisvara das wrote:

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:30:52 +0530, John McInnes wrote:

...

So billions of people are insane?

afraid so;

scary. well smoke if you got em -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 9/10/2011 4:00 PM, John McInnes wrote:

On 09/09/2011 08:33 PM, Brian K. White wrote:

...

...

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Religious apps? I have no use for them either, and although I'm absolutely atheist and have quite firm and quite unflattering opinions of anyone who actually believes any of that nonsense, or even allows for it's possibility in any real way,

Even though I think a disbelief in any religion is fundamentally different than believing one religion vs another, and would argue that it's perfectly valid to criticize any believer and treat them exactly as you would treat anyone else who has demonstrated that they are insane or incompetent or out of touch in any other way,

So billions of people are insane? [revised a few times to be more diplomatic.. ---> ] Hmm but isn't Atheism is a religion all its own, with leaders, followers, mantra, faith, and yes bigots?? I know some rabid Richard Dawkins followers, the irony is always lost on them.

I know this has little to do with opensuse-factory, but I didn't start the name calling. Actually this goes much farther then just name calling one person..

-johnm

Those who "believe" can't really do anything else but project their faith based lack-of-reasoning reasoning on others, thus they don't see the fundamental distinction between believing in X vs believing in Y vs not believing in anything. They can't understand that it is not required to believe in anything in order to have structure, process, civilization, ethics/morals, even hope, even ceremony. They can't even conceive of any other motivation or explanation for ones actions. They can't explain anyones actions any other way than to assume that any set of rules anyone follows is just their religion, no different than any other religion. Of course billions of people are insane. The number hardly matters, only the facts. Billions of people are all human and so of course many have the same innate weaknesses. At one time everyone "knew" the world was flat. And they were, every single one, wrong. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:02:25 +0530, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Those who "believe" can't really do anything else but project their faith based lack-of-reasoning reasoning on others, thus they don't see the fundamental distinction between believing in X vs believing in Y vs not believing in anything.

They can't understand that it is not required to believe in anything in order to have structure, process, civilization, ethics/morals, even hope, even ceremony. They can't even conceive of any other motivation or explanation for ones actions. They can't explain anyones actions any other way than to assume that any set of rules anyone follows is just their religion, no different than any other religion.

Of course billions of people are insane. The number hardly matters, only the facts. Billions of people are all human and so of course many have the same innate weaknesses. At one time everyone "knew" the world was flat. And they were, every single one, wrong.

This is not productive. You are welcome to your views, as is anyone. We do not require anything but technical skill to enable our project goals. We are not a platform for religion, or for anti religious sentimentor propaganda.

roger, you're correct, of course. this part of the discussion has nothing to do with openSUSE and shouldn't be taking place. nevertheless, like almost everybody else, i've got to throw my opinion in here: brian doesn't realize that, with his categorical statements about "believers," he's just as wrong as many dogmatic believers are: making his faith into another dogma that people have to subscribe to lest they be labeled insane. what's the difference to some fanatic [fill in your least favorite religion]? none. we all have to believe, because in reality we know nothing. you may believe in the output of some computer network that monitors a particle accelerator and declare that prticle [x] has been discovered, only to be refuted later when somebody else discovers particle [y]. i believe in god, and i've chosen a particular way to try to learn more and get closer to the purpose of life, which i believe exists -- but i KNOW that both of us may be wrong, and that others, who choose a different way to that 'god,' are probably as right as i am. all of us are limited due to our very fallible human nature, and that includes brian k. white. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:07:58 +0530, Alin Marin Elena wrote:

in a general sense all of us are believers. all system of thoughts are based on believing something... or if you want to be scientific,assuming some hypothesis. This is the place where the believers start to split... in what I like to think dogmatic and critical thinkers.

the science which is the example you used... indeed starts with the statement there is X... and then puts all the machinery of critical thinking to establish some value of true or false to that statement... if true... the machinery continues and nice consequences areobtained... making your life better. if false a new statement is generated and the critical thinking process continues...

the problem with the statement there is a god... or if you want in a more philosophical manner, there is a primordial cause... is that once one applies the critical thinking process the outcome is the there is a god or there is not god... cannot be proved...

yes, it's beyond our ability to prove, or even to understand. people xxx years ago couldn't have conceived of electricity, or whatever. there are things we can't wrap our mind around, which aren't subject to the scientific process we understand; doesn't mean they can't exist.

The critical thinker... will say... I cannot use something I cannot prove to get a system of thoughts... the dogmatic believer will say there is a god... and then build his system of thoughts... with the consequences that we see today... probably Nietzsche put it the best with his God is dead.

since it can't be proven either way with the means at our disposal, saying "yes, there's god," or "no, there isn't one" are equally supported by scientific evidence. it _is_ a question of belief, either way. now there's plenty of quotes from scientists like altbert einstein and god knows how many others [pun intended], and equally or more quotes of others saying the opposite. confirms the 'scientific' result: is a matter of faith (and not only idiots believe). unfortunately there are idiots in all of these camps, and they'll as happily misuse religious sentiments (belief based on faith only, without critical thinking) as they misuse results of scientific research that weren't really meant for bad purposes.

Of course you will find well versed believers how will tell you... that science cannot give you a moral system... law of gravitation will not tell you what is good to eat... to rich heaven. indeed moral systems come from ethics... And ethics is fully under the governance of critical thinking... and absurd outcomes are discarded..

in my opinion that should be applied to any moral code, if it's based on religious traditions or not. we, humans, are apt to make mistakes and worse: use anything to our own advantage. there has to be critical thinking.

On the other hand certain system of thought, of religious inspiration will not change their moral rules even when the absurdity is shown via the critical thinking process and they will dismiss the outcome on the base of work of devil, devils, negative forces. In past times and even nowadays religion equates ethics in certain spaces, as source of moral... and that is in my humble opinion a sorry state.

i agree. i don't see it as "the work of religion," but as the work of bad or selfish people. if they use religion or something else depends on what's available. do you really think they fought those crusades because they believed in god, or was it for the plunder and whatever political gains they wanted to achieve? are the polititians of a certain super-power fighting the "axis of evil" only for moral reasons?

Now you may come with the argument that many people cannot be wrong, and there are plenty being religious around.

ahem, i didn't make this argument and don't support it.

I will invite them, then to see if a statement like that stands the critical thinking process. Who were the wrongs or the rights? The Christian who massacred Muslims or the Muslims who massacred the Christians. these are just simple facts that happened in the last 1000 years in Europe and Middle East. The Hindus who hacked to pieces Muslims or the Muslims who hacked to pieces Hindus... that was sometime in the last 100 years on the Indian subcontinent.. and all of them started simple by the fact that there is a god (in its various flavours) was assumed true by many.

in my opinion, that was not the reason for any of these massacres. it's that people in general don't think very much, don't like to ask themselves and others uncomfortable questions. talented people w/o scruples can misuse that, and if there's no "religion" around, they'll use something else. it's not that by abolishing religion you'll make people more critical; they'll find something or somebody else to follow; they'll be made an "offer they can't refuse."

And of course one can give a lot of examples of the absurdity that assuming true a statement like there is a god!

...and the other way around.

Personally I think more the religious ideas are exposed to critical thinking better for society... more people are allowed to question them faster the society will move towards a better place... but maybe all this is just wishful thinking...

and here i finally agree with you. there's so much BS around, not only but also in the garb of religion. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Op 12-09-11 20:03, Greg Freemyer schreef:

Guys,

If you move the atheism vs primordial creator discussion to opensuse-offtopic I'll join in.

But this is not the place for it.

Greg

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 1:44 PM, phanisvara das wrote:

...

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:07:58 +0530, Alin Marin Elena wrote:

...

in a general sense all of us are believers. all system of thoughts are based on believing something... or if you want to be scientific,assuming some hypothesis. This is the place where the believers start to split... in what I like to think dogmatic and critical thinkers.

the science which is the example you used... indeed starts with the statement there is X... and then puts all the machinery of critical thinking to establish some value of true or false to that statement... if true... the machinery continues and nice consequences areobtained... making your life better. if false a new statement is generated and the critical thinking process continues...

the problem with the statement there is a god... or if you want in a more philosophical manner, there is a primordial cause... is that once one applies the critical thinking process the outcome is the there is a god or there is not god... cannot be proved...

yes, it's beyond our ability to prove, or even to understand. people xxx years ago couldn't have conceived of electricity, or whatever. there are things we can't wrap our mind around, which aren't subject to the scientific process we understand; doesn't mean they can't exist.

...

The critical thinker... will say... I cannot use something I cannot prove to get a system of thoughts... the dogmatic believer will say there is a god... and then build his system of thoughts... with the consequences that we see today... probably Nietzsche put it the best with his God is dead.

since it can't be proven either way with the means at our disposal, saying "yes, there's god," or "no, there isn't one" are equally supported by scientific evidence. it _is_ a question of belief, either way. now there's plenty of quotes from scientists like altbert einstein and god knows how many others [pun intended], and equally or more quotes of others saying the opposite. confirms the 'scientific' result: is a matter of faith (and not only idiots believe).

unfortunately there are idiots in all of these camps, and they'll as happily misuse religious sentiments (belief based on faith only, without critical thinking) as they misuse results of scientific research that weren't really meant for bad purposes.

...

Of course you will find well versed believers how will tell you... that science cannot give you a moral system... law of gravitation will not tell you what is good to eat... to rich heaven. indeed moral systems come from ethics... And ethics is fully under the governance of critical thinking... and absurd outcomes are discarded..

in my opinion that should be applied to any moral code, if it's based on religious traditions or not. we, humans, are apt to make mistakes and worse: use anything to our own advantage. there has to be critical thinking.

...

On the other hand certain system of thought, of religious inspiration will not change their moral rules even when the absurdity is shown via the critical thinking process and they will dismiss the outcome on the base of work of devil, devils, negative forces. In past times and even nowadays religion equates ethics in certain spaces, as source of moral... and that is in my humble opinion a sorry state.

i agree. i don't see it as "the work of religion," but as the work of bad or selfish people. if they use religion or something else depends on what's available. do you really think they fought those crusades because they believed in god, or was it for the plunder and whatever political gains they wanted to achieve? are the polititians of a certain super-power fighting the "axis of evil" only for moral reasons?

...

Now you may come with the argument that many people cannot be wrong, and there are plenty being religious around.

ahem, i didn't make this argument and don't support it.

...

I will invite them, then to see if a statement like that stands the critical thinking process. Who were the wrongs or the rights? The Christian who massacred Muslims or the Muslims who massacred the Christians. these are just simple facts that happened in the last 1000 years in Europe and Middle East. The Hindus who hacked to pieces Muslims or the Muslims who hacked to pieces Hindus... that was sometime in the last 100 years on the Indian subcontinent.. and all of them started simple by the fact that there is a god (in its various flavours) was assumed true by many.

in my opinion, that was not the reason for any of these massacres. it's that people in general don't think very much, don't like to ask themselves and others uncomfortable questions. talented people w/o scruples can misuse that, and if there's no "religion" around, they'll use something else. it's not that by abolishing religion you'll make people more critical; they'll find something or somebody else to follow; they'll be made an "offer they can't refuse."

...

And of course one can give a lot of examples of the absurdity that assuming true a statement like there is a god!

...and the other way around.

...

Personally I think more the religious ideas are exposed to critical thinking better for society... more people are allowed to question them faster the society will move towards a better place... but maybe all this is just wishful thinking...

and here i finally agree with you. there's so much BS around, not only but also in the garb of religion.

-- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

I could not agree more André den Oudsten -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Monday, September 12, 2011 11:37:48 AM phanisvara das wrote:

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:53:16 +0530, A. den Oudsten

wrote:

...

Op 12-09-11 20:03, Greg Freemyer schreef:

...

Guys,

If you move the atheism vs primordial creator discussion to opensuse-offtopic I'll join in.

But this is not the place for it.

Greg

<snip>

...

I could not agree more André den Oudsten

yes, i'm feeling bad about misusing factory list from the beginning.

don't know about opensuse-offtopic at the moment, but at one point i unsubscribed because it was all about politics. at first i didn't understand what was being talked about, not being from US, and when i made an effort, i didn't want to understand anymore. the crowd matters.

but this isn't the right list. i'll subscribe to OT again. Got the link for OT? I'll go take a look, maybe its fascinating. If nothing else I'll be an odd addition as a Gay White Hindu Communist. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 9/12/2011 10:55 AM, phanisvara das wrote:

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:02:25 +0530, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

...

Those who "believe" can't really do anything else but project their faith based lack-of-reasoning reasoning on others, thus they don't see the fundamental distinction between believing in X vs believing in Y vs not believing in anything.

They can't understand that it is not required to believe in anything in order to have structure, process, civilization, ethics/morals, even hope, even ceremony. They can't even conceive of any other motivation or explanation for ones actions. They can't explain anyones actions any other way than to assume that any set of rules anyone follows is just their religion, no different than any other religion.

Of course billions of people are insane. The number hardly matters, only the facts. Billions of people are all human and so of course many have the same innate weaknesses. At one time everyone "knew" the world was flat. And they were, every single one, wrong.

...

This is not productive. You are welcome to your views, as is anyone. We do not require anything but technical skill to enable our project goals.We are not a platform for religion, or for anti religious sentimentor propaganda.

roger, you're correct, of course. this part of the discussion has nothing to do with openSUSE and shouldn't be taking place. nevertheless, like almost everybody else, i've got to throw my opinion in here:

brian doesn't realize that, with his categorical statements about "believers," he's just as wrong as many dogmatic believers are: making his faith into another dogma that people have to subscribe to lest they be labeled insane. what's the difference to some fanatic [fill in your least favorite religion]? none.

we all have to believe, because in reality we know nothing. you may believe in the output of some computer network that monitors a particle accelerator and declare that prticle [x] has been discovered, only to be refuted later when somebody else discovers particle [y]. i believe in god, and i've chosen a particular way to try to learn more and get closer to the purpose of life, which i believe exists -- but i KNOW that both of us may be wrong, and that others, who choose a different way to that 'god,' are probably as right as i am. all of us are limited due to our very fallible human nature, and that includes brian k. white.

And there you display the problem without seeing it yourself, thus proving my point. I do not believe in anything. I act according to what is reasonable based on observations and reasoning, up to the limit of my capacity for observation and reasoning. But I know all along that those capacities are limited and subject to change, and that the deductions from those capacities are likewise subject to change. If I "believe" some scientist or engineer who says something I yself can't directly observe or understand, I'm really not believing him/her at all but believing my own direct observation that most scientists are both honest, and thorough enough not likely to be mistaken about whatever they are claiming they found. And those that are either dishonest or sloppy, will sooner or later be discovered by the other scientists who can demonstrate the discrepancy. This much I have seen myself first hand and requires no belief, as well as being applicable to my self which also requires no belief. "believing" in further removed experts in other subjects is not believing at all but just extrapolating that what applies to everyone I have ever observed first hand probably applies to most others. Of course I could be wrong. I could be living in a specially constructed world that falsifies every aspect of my experiences like that Jim Carey movie based on the Phillip K. Dick novel, but that would be a STUPID basis for constructing ones world view and actions. Further, no scientist ever says "this is the way it is" but the religions DO say "this is the way it is". Science does not claim to prove but instead always seeks to dis-prove. Whatever manages to resist dis-proval the longest, is treated _tentatively_ as the basis for future reasoning. By now the only thing science claims to "know" is that that probably nothing we use as mental place-holders right now will turn out to be the whole real story later. The fact that you don't understand why that makes such a big difference, and why that method of operation can be "right" while basing real-world actions on Faith can be "wrong" instead of "two equally valid opinions" is not my fault. The fact that this is demonstrable and thus inarguable is seen by you as an insult or affront to your sensibilities is not my fault. The fact that your sensibilities do not exhibit parity with observation, is not my fault. Don't want to be called a wacko believer in fairy tales? Don't believe in fairy tales! Simple! People may not like the way it sounds unfair or disrespectful or pointlessly "mean" to call believers at worst idiots or at best willfully deluded, but too bad. Just because an idiot doesn't know why others call him an idiot doesn't change the fact that he is. I agree it's not necessary to call them an idiot and hurt their feelings for no reason as long as they are not hurting anyone. But you believers, by trying to say that your fantasy is anything but fantasy, must be corrected. Your feelings are not sufficient reason to sit by and allow the spread of mis-guidance to the potentially susceptible. This is not "opinion, no more valid than your or my opinion". I do have opinions for instance on why people become and/or remain believers. What makes them mere opinions is that they are my conjecture, based on intuition and little else. Not based on any real facts or measurable and reproducible experiments. But basing your thoughts and your actions on a self-satisfying, circular logic, man made construct, that only might be true simply because literally anything _might_ be true in an infinite and unknowable universe, is stupid. You could just as easily conduct your life according to the tennets of the flying spaghetti monster (which is exactly the point of that institution), and it would be _exactly_ as valid and _exactly_ as absurd, as any other religion. Ultimately, just because some ridiculous made-up story can't be dis-proven because it includes a lawyer clause that says essentially "Anything about this which doesn't seem to make sense like why innocent children and truly wonderful giving people die in agony every minute of every day, that can all be explained by the fact that He is so vastly above us that of course we can't expect to understand His actions, but you know, better do what we say He says anyways, just in case..." is stupid. You only have your one little tiny brief life. Waste it on hoping for or fearing some afterlife? Idiocy. Utter, admittedly understandable, idiocy. It's not my fault you are a sucker. It's not my obligation to pretend your baseless hopes have any validity just to preserve your deluded world-view. It's not anyone else's responsibility to protect your delicate fantasy from colliding with reality. The fact that you do not like hearing this does not make the fundamental problem go away and does not make me "wrong" for insisting that a fantasy is a fantasy. It is what it is and it's really not subject to personality. A disbelief in fantastical ideas is not itself just an equally fantastical belief. The scientific method isn't "dogma". You do not get to cry "Intolerance!" over the insistence on only granting any credit to ideas which can be demonstrated. Feel free to demonstrate His existence and all this goes away. But "demonstrate" is a technical term which requires employing the scientific method, which you (I have to assume) don't "believe" in and can't actually perform or understand why one experiment proves (tentatively, always tentatively) a thing and another does not (not even tentatively), and so the discussion is irresolvable. The real evil of religion is two-fold. 1, That it corrupts people while they are still too young to know better. Unfortunately most humans are susceptible to a form of imprinting where things that happen in early development actually physically alter the brain and so for the rest of their lives, even when they later attain more experience and more ability to evaluate things and make judgements, it's too late for most to be able to shake the deep-rooted belief no matter what their eyes, ears, and reasoning ability tells them. People have a great capacity for blind-spots to help them avoid unpleasant internal crises. 2, That religion hooks into and exploits several of humans' greatest weaknesses which are emotion (vs reason) for dictating actions and reactions, fear of death, fear of being alone and powerless and uncared for. These things are deep in people and many many people are simply too weak to face them honestly. The saccharine is just too sweet to resist. This doesn't make the suckers evil, but neither does their being merely well-meaning suckers absolve them of having to exist in the real world in which praying doesn't actually work to solve problems and achieve goals. A lot of that last IS just my "opinion" but you know what? Opinions are not at all all equal and frankly I think mine are worth more than most. It doesn't bother me the tiniest bit that other people with differing or opposite opinions think the same about themselves. I only care about, only waste my time on, what appears to fit the facts until the facts or observations change. I don't care how many people think praying will keep an asteroid from hitting the earth and wiping us all out. I don't care how many people think if that happens then it was His will and we should just let it happen. F&^%&^ them I'm going to employ the scientific method as long as it _works_, and do, or help in doing, what will actually get the job done, even though it means you can satisifiedly say "see, we prayed and missiles got built and the asteroid got deflected". Do you really want to continue this? Do you think you have a shred of a chance to demonstrate that there is any actual validity to religious beliefs? You really expect to be the first person ever in the history of the earth to finally manage that, today here on a linux distribution mail list? Talk about capacity for belief... Making a comment that apparently sounds logical and cutting and ironic to you, while actually being none of those, is just more proof of the very point atheists have been making since day one about the insidious nature of allowing illogic to have any valid voice. Actually, just using the word "atheist" is itself already a misleading framing of the concept. By assigning a word like that "atheist" it falsely makes the concept sound like it's just another belief system, different from christianity or islam only in the trappings. Really there should be no word for "atheism" just as there is no word for "doesn't believe mirrors steal souls" or "doesn't believe the toys come alive at night when no one is looking". They are simply called "sane". -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am 12.09.2011 21:32, schrieb phanisvara das:

On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:30:20 +0530, Brian K. White wrote:

...

A lot of that last IS just my "opinion" but you know what? Opinions are not at all all equal and frankly I think mine are worth more than most.

dont' we all?

moved it to opensuse-offtopic. please continue there Kim -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Forwarded to -offtopic where it belongs. Hopefully responses will only go there. Please delete -factory from any responses to this. On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 5:39 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

On 2011/09/12 15:00 (GMT-0400) Brian K. White composed:

...

By now the only thing science claims to "know" is that that probably nothing we use as mental place-holders right now will turn out to be the whole real story later.

That so-called "knowledge" too is still mere hypothesis...

...

....literally anything _might_ be true in an infinite and unknowable universe...

...

..."demonstrate" is a technical term which requires employing the scientific method

Not every scientific method has yet been discovered or recognized as such. Some demonstrations witnessed by many, recorded in writing, many have chosen to disbelieve at least in part because they didn't witness personally.

Had you espoused your anti-religion beliefs among the 'deluded' Americans responsible for creation of and who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, which reads in part "We hold these truths to be self-evident...that they are endowed by their Creator...", or those who penned the language of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which reads in part "Congress shall make no law ... [religion], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", assuredly it would have been you dismissed as ridiculous or idiot.

Many intelligent people find spontaneous life generation from inorganic matter evolving into human beings with ability have opinions and communicate them to other humans via writing, and to humans and other species via speech and gestures, and to have discovered that chromosomes 220 million base pairs long exist, and what any of them do, to be more ludicrous than creation by a Creator with power and knowledge far greater than feeble human brains can fathom.

I for one find evolution from non-living matter all the way to thinking and reasoning humans, and for the Earth to have remained in appropriate relation to the Sun long enough for that to take place, to be the most preposterous supposition implied within this thread.

That we can think and communicate, and that gravity exists to keep us on the ground and the Earth in that narrow life-supporting band of distance encircling the Sun, and that plants extract from soil those nutrients to convert via energy from sunlight to the food our bodies need to sustain, are to me daily demonstration and proof of a higher power, a Creator, which I believe to be the God of the Bible, a belief which was shared by most of the creators of the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the longest lived existing government on this planet. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

-- Greg Freemyer Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer CNN/TruTV Aired Forensic Imaging Demo -    http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/23/how-computer-evidence-gets-retriev... The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Roger Luedecke

wrote:

...

On Monday, September 12, 2011 06:41:30 AM Brian K. White wrote:

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On 9/10/2011 4:00 PM, John McInnes wrote:

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On 09/09/2011 08:33 PM, Brian K. White wrote:

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...

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing).

Religious apps? I have no use for them either, and although I'm absolutely atheist and have quite firm and quite unflattering opinions of anyone who actually believes any of that nonsense, or even allows for it's possibility in any real way,

Even though I think a disbelief in any religion is fundamentally different than believing one religion vs another, and would argue that it's perfectly valid to criticize any believer and treat them exactly as you would treat anyone else who has demonstrated that they are insane or incompetent or out of touch in any other way,

So billions of people are insane? [revised a few times to be more diplomatic.. ---> ] Hmm but isn't Atheism is a religion all its own, with leaders, followers, mantra, faith, and yes bigots?? I know some rabid Richard Dawkins followers, the irony is always lost on them.

I know this has little to do with opensuse-factory, but I didn't start the name calling. Actually this goes much farther then just name calling one person..

-johnm

Those who "believe" can't really do anything else but project their faith based lack-of-reasoning reasoning on others, thus they don't see the fundamental distinction between believing in X vs believing in Y vs not believing in anything.

They can't understand that it is not required to believe in anything in order to have structure, process, civilization, ethics/morals, even hope, even ceremony. They can't even conceive of any other motivation or explanation for ones actions. They can't explain anyones actions any other way than to assume that any set of rules anyone follows is just their religion, no different than any other religion.

Of course billions of people are insane. The number hardly matters, only the facts. Billions of people are all human and so of course many have the same innate weaknesses. At one time everyone "knew" the world was flat. And they were, every single one, wrong.

This is not productive. You are welcome to your views, as is anyone. We do not require anything but technical skill to enable our project goals. We are not a platform for religion, or for anti religious sentiment or propaganda.

I see this sort of comment a lot in the discussion. What I find interesting is that I only see it when an atheist cricizes religion or religious people. When a religious person criticizes atheism or atheists no one seems to complain. You didn't express any problem with John McInnes's comment where he disparages all atheists, nor have you done so for other people who did the same. Yet you have repeatedly cricized atheists for their lack of civility.

I agree we should be more civil, but I think that this should apply to both sides.

-Todd Absolutely agreed. However, we really just need to cut the crap. Upto now, we have all worked together making something amazing. Then sudenly a church wants to move Sword over to the factory repo from Education (where it is

On Monday, September 12, 2011 08:05:33 AM todd rme wrote: properly classified and placed) and now people can't just stop and take a breath. This discussion does not belong here. I can't even find the debate in the midst of all the poo slinging from both camps. FYI: Though I am Hindu and thus religious in most peoples estimation (I only use the term for convenience) I am more critical of Atheists because, quite frankly I expect better of them. I do not expect that from religious people; I anticipate uncivility and hard-headedness and generally choose to ignore it since I long ago exhausted myself in futile argumentation with those of blind- faith. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:31:31 PM Karl Eichwalder wrote:

Am Mon 12 Sep 2011 11:59:12 PM CEST schrieb Roger Luedecke

:

...

Then sudenly a church wants to move Sword over to the factory repo from Education (where it is properly classified and placed) and now people can't just stop and take a breath.

IMO, it is not. Adding the reader software is probably ok (assuming that it is untainted), but adding the contents is not. I also do not add arbitrary books from gutenberg.org and especially not all the translations.

If the sword developers need a file for testing convert a free document about Linux into the bible format, and you are done.

This is my very personal view. Well, what is the point of having an education repo at all then? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Brian K. White wrote:

On 9/14/2011 2:49 AM, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

On Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:31:31 PM Karl Eichwalder wrote:

...

Am Mon 12 Sep 2011 11:59:12 PM CEST schrieb Roger Luedecke

:

...

Then sudenly a church wants to move Sword over to the factory repo from Education (where it is properly classified and placed) and now people can't just stop and take a breath.

IMO, it is not.  Adding the reader software is probably ok (assuming that it is untainted), but adding the contents is not.  I also do not add arbitrary books from gutenberg.org and especially not all the translations.

If the sword developers need a file for testing convert a free document about Linux into the bible format, and you are done.

This is my very personal view.

Well, what is the point of having an education repo at all then?

Repos hold software, or documentation about software, not general library books.

We already have at least a Linux/programming few books in the repos. (I just did a search for books.) These are in the 11.4 main repo: "Linux Installation and getting started" by Matt Welsh "Linux Programmers Guide" by Sven Goldt and Sven van der Meer "Linux Network Administrators Guide, Second Edition" by Olaf Kirch and Terry Dawson "Linux System Administrators Guide" by Lars Wirzenius "Linux Users Guide" by Larry Greenfield "Linux Kernel 2.4 Internals" by Tigran Aivazian "The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide" by Ori Pomerantz And a handful about programming in the education repo: C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (First Edition) (ISBN 0131872494) by Jasmin Blanchette & Mark Summerfield. C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3 (ISBN 0131240722) by Jasmin Blanchette & Mark Summerfield. Moving from Python 2 to Python 3 a "cheat sheet" for Python 2 programmers written for InformIT I didn't know they were in OBS, but since they are I see no reason to kick them out. They don't violate the current policies, etc. And obviously someone cares enough to package them. At least for books that don't violate other policies, I think that should be the criteria instead of a blanket "No books allowed" policy. I would especially like to see the opensuse created books in OBS. ie. A new OBS users guide was either just written or is in the process of being written. Having it in OBS would increase the odds of me finding and downloading it. And then who knows, maybe I'll even reference it! Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 9/14/2011 5:47 PM, Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Brian K. White wrote:

...

On 9/14/2011 2:49 AM, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

On Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:31:31 PM Karl Eichwalder wrote:

...

Am Mon 12 Sep 2011 11:59:12 PM CEST schrieb Roger Luedecke

:

...

Then sudenly a church wants to move Sword over to the factory repo from Education (where it is properly classified and placed) and now people can't just stop and take a breath.

IMO, it is not. Adding the reader software is probably ok (assuming that it is untainted), but adding the contents is not. I also do not add arbitrary books from gutenberg.org and especially not all the translations.

If the sword developers need a file for testing convert a free document about Linux into the bible format, and you are done.

This is my very personal view.

Well, what is the point of having an education repo at all then?

Repos hold software, or documentation about software, not general library books.

We already have at least a Linux/programming few books in the repos. (I just did a search for books.)

These are in the 11.4 main repo:

"Linux Installation and getting started" by Matt Welsh "Linux Programmers Guide" by Sven Goldt and Sven van der Meer "Linux Network Administrators Guide, Second Edition" by Olaf Kirch and Terry Dawson "Linux System Administrators Guide" by Lars Wirzenius "Linux Users Guide" by Larry Greenfield "Linux Kernel 2.4 Internals" by Tigran Aivazian "The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide" by Ori Pomerantz

And a handful about programming in the education repo:

C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (First Edition) (ISBN 0131872494) by Jasmin Blanchette& Mark Summerfield.

C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3 (ISBN 0131240722) by Jasmin Blanchette& Mark Summerfield.

Moving from Python 2 to Python 3 a "cheat sheet" for Python 2 programmers written for InformIT

I didn't know they were in OBS, but since they are I see no reason to kick them out. They don't violate the current policies, etc. And obviously someone cares enough to package them.

At least for books that don't violate other policies, I think that should be the criteria instead of a blanket "No books allowed" policy.

I would especially like to see the opensuse created books in OBS. ie. A new OBS users guide was either just written or is in the process of being written. Having it in OBS would increase the odds of me finding and downloading it. And then who knows, maybe I'll even reference it!

Greg

Like I said, documentation about software! -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 09/14/2011 08:07 PM, Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

On 9/14/2011 5:47 PM, Greg Freemyer wrote:

...

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Brian K. White wrote:

...

...

On Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:31:31 PM Karl Eichwalder wrote:

...

Am Mon 12 Sep 2011 11:59:12 PM CEST schrieb Roger Luedecke

: > Then sudenly a church > wants to move Sword over to the factory repo from Education (where it > is properly classified and placed) and now people can't just stop > and take a breath. IMO, it is not. Adding the reader software is probably ok (assuming that it is untainted), but adding the contents is not. I also do not add arbitrary books from gutenberg.org and especially not all the translations.

If the sword developers need a file for testing convert a free document about Linux into the bible format, and you are done.

This is my very personal view. Well, what is the point of having an education repo at all then? Repos hold software, or documentation about software, not general

On 9/14/2011 2:49 AM, Roger Luedecke wrote: library books. We already have at least a Linux/programming few books in the repos. (I just did a search for books.)

These are in the 11.4 main repo:

"Linux Installation and getting started" by Matt Welsh "Linux Programmers Guide" by Sven Goldt and Sven van der Meer "Linux Network Administrators Guide, Second Edition" by Olaf Kirch and Terry Dawson "Linux System Administrators Guide" by Lars Wirzenius "Linux Users Guide" by Larry Greenfield "Linux Kernel 2.4 Internals" by Tigran Aivazian "The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide" by Ori Pomerantz

And a handful about programming in the education repo:

C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (First Edition) (ISBN 0131872494) by Jasmin Blanchette& Mark Summerfield.

C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3 (ISBN 0131240722) by Jasmin Blanchette& Mark Summerfield.

Moving from Python 2 to Python 3 a "cheat sheet" for Python 2 programmers written for InformIT

I didn't know they were in OBS, but since they are I see no reason to kick them out. They don't violate the current policies, etc. And obviously someone cares enough to package them.

At least for books that don't violate other policies, I think that should be the criteria instead of a blanket "No books allowed" policy.

I would especially like to see the opensuse created books in OBS. ie. A new OBS users guide was either just written or is in the process of being written. Having it in OBS would increase the odds of me finding and downloading it. And then who knows, maybe I'll even reference it!

Greg Like I said, documentation about software! We should have a "books" pattern so people will even know they are there at all... I mean, I wouldn't think to look for books in a software repo. And we definitely need to make sure there is no copyright being violated by their

On Wednesday, September 14, 2011 03:42:39 PM Brian K. White wrote: presence. +1

-- Cheers! Roman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 06:53:23 AM Basil Chupin wrote:

On 10/09/11 22:43, Kirill Kirillov wrote:

...

Hi!

В Птн, 09/09/2011 в 11:59 +0200, Sascha Peilicke пишет:

...

Hello everyone,

sr#81625 want's to add 'sword', a bible study tool to openSUSE:Factory. While that is totally fine, the spec file %description contains stuff like:

+The SWORD Project is an effort to create an ever expanding software package for +research and study of God and His Word.

While I don't care much for that particular bedtime story, others may well be offended by biased religious views (even more so if their's differing). Of course, this may equally apply to policitcal views or offensive words.

I have the feeling that openSUSE should take neutral stance, be inviting and open for everyone (and we're quite good at that already). But I'm not sure if we should provide a stage for non-technical biased views. Even less so for those with a mission. Thus, the question I'd like to ask is whether we should allow such formulations or not. Do we already have policy for that or do we care at all?

First of all, this description is from the sword.spec.in file, which one can find in the upstream archive [1]. Exactly the same description is used at least by Mandriva [2].

I will update the description if my submit request is rejected, it is not a problem.

In my opinion, the real problem is to name God's word as a bedtime story. I hope that the author of this disrespectful saying is smart enough to apologise for it.

[1] http://www.crosswire.org/ftpmirror/pub/sword/source/v1.6/sword-1.6.2.tar. gz [2] http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/packages/cooker/sword/current/ SPECS/sword.spec?revision=686324&view=markup

Oh heaven help us....which "God "are you talking about?

'You' can't even spell "Odin" correctly...... Is Odin the god you are on about?

Please tell me something - otherwise I will be sleeping restlessly and wondering: when you cross yourself during a church service do you perform the sign of the cross with thumb/first finger/second finger together and from the forehead/navel/left shoulder/right shoulder to form the cross, or using the whole hand from forehead/nave/right shoulder/left shoulder?

BC You all need to chill. Bedtime story was to refer to every religion. I'm religious and felt no burning need to be offended, so stop being childish. The creator of all things doesn't need us to defend His honor; his honor is written in the night sky.

Look, as a philosophical sort of person, I like to harass religious people sometimes too; but this is not the place for that. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org