Hello,
since you agreed to it I will reply publicly.
> Thank you for your open words and for all the work you’ve put into this
> package. I understand that it’s frustrating when you feel your effort
> isn’t fully recognized or valued. I want to reassure you: your
> contributions are appreciated. I believe many of us see and respect the
> dedication behind your work, even if we sometimes fail to express it
> clearly.
Sorry, but these are empty words.
Letting something be for 20 years and then using the community and release
team hammers on me after 2 years of work is a power abuse (and the opposite of
welcoming community). If it had to be done it had to be done immediately when
I adopted the package or before. Now it's too late.
Refusing to help when asked and instead going to the release team is a power
abuse.
I am the one who has actually done the work of cleaning up the packages, while
community team has refused my request to help review and point out specific
issues.
I am sure my contributions are appreciated by the users of the packages in
question.
I am not sure why people who have not installed the package are reporting bugs
on it. If anyone who is not in the community team does such a thing, the bug
gets closed immediately. Yet here I am wasting even more time :)
> As for the broader discussion — the “let’s avoid offending anyone”
> perspective resurfaced after a case involving the fortunes-eo package.
> That package included quotes that were genuinely offensive, and
> unfortunately, the maintainer did not address the issue across multiple
> releases. That situation made it clear that we can’t always rely on
> maintainers to respond promptly — or at all — in such cases. So the team
> decided to err on the side of caution: better safe than sorry.
I don't think this applies here. I replied immediately. So why even bring it
up since it's completely irrelevant in this context?
> I recognize that Esperanto is a language meant to bridge cultures, while
> Italian — like most national languages — comes with a more defined
> cultural context. Still, we can’t always know the background of someone
> who’s learning Italian or exploring packages related to it. We don’t
> want to risk alienating those users — especially if they might feel too
> intimidated to even file a bug report.
Which is why I actually removed several quotes or moved them to the offensive
section.
I've been doing this thankless job for 2 years and while some users did get in
touch privately (to report quotes that were in english), I did not expect to
be thanked.
I also did not expect to be harassed by someone who has never helped, refuses
to help, refuses to even reply, and wants to give me even more work to do; and
I must also be happy and grateful of having wasted so much time!
> That’s why we’re asking maintainers to help by removing quotes that
> could be seen as offensive
I've been doing precisely that. How is making me regret contributing to debian
going to help exactly?
> even if they don’t seem problematic within
> the original cultural frame. It’s not about censoring personality or
> humor — it’s about creating a space where more people feel safe and
> welcome.
I do not currently feel welcome. In fact I feel extremely glad that I rejected
the funding that had been offered to me to attend the debconf.
I had planned to perhaps attend a minidebconf in the near future instead, but
I want to reconsider the amount of involvement I have with debian. I recently
gave a lecture at university about libre software and debian. But if I don't
feel welcomed anymore I certainly must stop preaching around telling how nice
it is.
> Thanks again for all your work, and for being open to this conversation.
Again, empty words. I would appreciate if you could be more direct in the
future, since we all know they are empty words.
I know the release team is going to remove the package wether I want it or
not, as I've already been reminded in debian-devel. I'm not that stupid :)
But if you think you can go ahead and do that while somehow convincing me that
wasting 2 years of work is not a big deal and things will go back as they
were… I think that is completely delusional.
And I repeat myself, but it would be helpful to have someone actually help to
read all the quotes and decide, rather than take random bulk decisions.
So far I am the only 1 person who has stepped up to do this job.
Turning away the few people who do this job will not help make debian more
friendly.
Best
--
Salvo Tomaselli
I difensori della morale tradizionale sono raramente persone di cuore. Si è
tentati di pensare che essi si servano della morale come di legittimo sfogo
al loro desiderio di fare del male agli altri.
-- Bertrand Russell, Perché non sono cristiano. 1957
https://ltworf.codeberg.page/
