Anarchism FAQ?! WTF?...

[Eric Dunbar]

On 13/02/07, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 12:08:56PM +0000, chombee wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 15:56 -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > > I don't think that the political position of this document is as much of an
> > > issue as the question of whether it's appropriate to distribute large
> > > documents, of no direct relevance to Ubuntu, in the form of Ubuntu packages
> > > simply for the sake of making them easy to install.  Works of literature,
> > > encyclopaedic content, etc. are subject to the same debate.
> > >
> > > There was a similar question in Debian some time ago, where I believe this
> > > same package was used as an example.
> >
> > Maybe someone already said this but: doesn't the content of the
> > anarchist faq actually have some relevance to ubuntu and debian? We're
> > not an explicitly anarchist project but to me at least it seems that our
> > ways of doing things have a lot in common with anarchist principles and
> > practise. Open meetings, consensus decision making, anyone can
> > participate but no one is coerced into participating, etc. Much more
> > than we have in common with the usual capitalist way of running a
> > project. I think it is relevant.
>
> I think the above analogy is sufficiently tenuous that it doesn't justify
> the inclusion of such a document based on relevance to the project.  Ubuntu
> is likely to have something in common with almost any social or political
> movement, including religion, but rarely any practical relevance to our
> mission.
>
> And, by the way, this argument was more than fully explored in the Debian
> thread I referenced. ;-)

There's another consideration alluded to by previous posters:

The Anarchism FAQ is not at all directly relevant to the operation of
Ubuntu. So, since it is not relevant to the operation of Ubuntu its
secondary value needs to be considered. Granted, anarchism IS directly
relevant to the open source philosophy of software development since
they both advocate individual and local decision making and control.

However, Ubuntu is used by people in regimes where merely possessing
or even being able to access information on democracy is dangerous
(and, anarchy is the ultimate in local democracy). Is it ethical for
the maintainers of a more-or-less formally associated repository to
expose users in these situations to political risk?

Eric.