[SOLVED] Family Friendly?

[EssexJames]

I enjoyed setting up Ubuntu 8.10 with my 10 year old son. We learned about Ubuntu together and I was pleased that he was really engaged and interested in the whole process of installation and the philosophy of Ubuntu.

We looked at the various packages that can be installed - to see if there was anything that looked really interesting. We got some graphics and video applications. All excellent.

Then we hit a snag. "Daddy, what's Brainf**k?" he said. (This is the name of one of the packages).

Can I ask the community that develops Ubuntu and those that compile distributions, to please bear in mind that computers are family devices.

This forum's terms and conditions state "...you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar...". It's a great shame that the development community don't apply similar rules.

[Vunutus]

The one thing you have to remember is that the "development community" with open source projects is...well...everyone. It's hard to get everyone to abide my the same rules. For the most part, the Ubuntu team keeps it family friendly, and anything your son would be doing by himself would be perfectly acceptable.

[diablo75]

You might simply avoid Synaptic and stick with the simpler Add/Remove applet at the bottom of the Applications menu.

(Opens synaptic to search for brainf***). :lolflag:

[oldos2er]

"Daddy, what's Brainf**k?" he said.

Answer: It's a programming language.

[Crafty Kisses]

Embed Brainf**k in your perl code.

[Sealbhach]

That's an interesting story. I read somewhere that the code in the Linux kernel has got a smattering of uncouth language in it.


.

[diablo75]

That's an interesting story. I read somewhere that the code in the Linux kernel has got a smattering of uncouth language in it.


.

http://durak.org/sean/pubs/kfc/

http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/

[EssexJames]

http://durak.org/sean/pubs/kfc/

http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/

If the objective of Ubuntu and other Linux distributions is to provide an operating system which people can use to replace Microsoft software, then it will need to tidy up the use of profanities in the code and application names. Families with children will see these things, decide it's not for them, pay the devil and go to Microsoft instead.

I'll happily f and blind with the best of them, but don't expect profanities to appear on-screen when installing operating system software.

I wanted my son to become enthused by Linux and to learn about it himself. I install filters for web browsing for him - but I didn't think I'd need one for an operating system and its components.

[vergeh]

Yeah, Brainf**k is a programming language, so I don't really think the Ubuntu guys can be faulted for that one, any more than, say, a newspaper can be faulted for printing it in a direct quote. While the Linux source code is riddled with profanity (hey, so is my own code), you won't find much that's inappropriate in the documentation.

That leads me to a question: How difficult would it be to program a plugin that ***s out all the swears on text that appears on a machine? I can see doing them easily for individual programs (Firefox has a great greasemonkey (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748) profanity filter here (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4175)), I wonder if it would be possible to apply one universally.

[OutOfReach]

TBH it's not the Repository maintainer's fault.
Blame the person who named Brainf**k, Brainf**k.
P.S. Brainf**k is a programming language.

EDIT: vergeh made a nice analogy that pretty much expains everything:


so I don't really think the Ubuntu guys can be faulted for that one, any more than, say, a newspaper can be faulted for printing it in a direct quote.

[steveneddy]

I suggest that you explain it to him politely and professionally and if it bothers you, don't mention it to him again.

All children are going to learn these words eventually.

This is a good time to wear the Daddy hat and sit down with the little tyke and have a man to man talk.

I also raised my two daughters, now 20 and 23, and have my two grandchildren here living with me.

We just have to decide that when that day arrives, and it will, that we are man enough to explain things like this to them in an adult manner so that they understand why it is that way and why some of us choose not to use those types of words around our children.

Don't think worse of the whole community just because of the lapse in judgment of one developer.

[diablo75]

Well said, Stevenneddy.

[steveneddy]

Thank you.

I hope the OP feels the same way and doesn't ruin a good Ubuntu experience because of this one isolated incident.

[starcannon]

It is best to preview any material that you wish to expose your children to. It would be wrong to drop software simply because someone does not like the name. I would say that if freedom of speech and all of its implications are not something your prepared to deal with, perhaps some other OS is appropriate for your situation; I think Ubuntu is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have 2 daughters, one is 11 and the other is 12, I do not see that they have been damaged at all by the occasional exposure to a slang word in the package manager, they hear much worse on the school bus; and then there is popular media such as television, movies, and music, all 3 of which have much more offensive words and ideas than a satirically named and obscure language. I don't personally find BF to be offensive, nor do I see it as an issue, if one wants a sterile environment, then one must do the work of creating it, I like Linux soup and wouldn't change a thing even if I could.

I'd also point out that I have seen this same complaint about the Damn Small Linux distro, utterly ridiculous, one persons sense of morality in conflict with another's and an assumption that one is better than another; and hence, one of them should be silenced. Again, it is the parents responsability to preview material before exposing their children to it, it is not a distributions job to do that for them.

GL

[Linuxwho?]

I suggest that you explain it to him politely and professionally and if it bothers you, don't mention it to him again.

All children are going to learn these words eventually.

This is a good time to wear the Daddy hat and sit down with the little tyke and have a man to man talk.

I also raised my two daughters, now 20 and 23, and have my two grandchildren here living with me.

We just have to decide that when that day arrives, and it will, that we are man enough to explain things like this to them in an adult manner so that they understand why it is that way and why some of us choose not to use those types of words around our children.

Don't think worse of the whole community just because of the lapse in judgment of one developer.

This is amazingly good advice! It probably applies to everything in life. TBS, I think a filter program of some sort would be pretty awesome if someone could find or make one! 8-)

[jimmy the saint]

I don't know that I have ever seen so many #@&^!! words in a thread that will not be removed before!!

[jakupl]

Well, as stated before, brainf**k (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain****) is a programming language, so there not much the ubuntu developers can do about it, they did not name it. Although it is an interesting debate.

It could be removed from the repositories, which would be a very bad idea.
It could be censored ... that might work... somehow.

[EssexJames]

The issue just seems to provide ammunition for the enemies of open-source.

If the head of Microsoft is asked for a reason why Windows is better than Linux, all he needs to say is that Windows doesn't contain profanities in the software list.

I know it's a tough one to solve - but if Ubuntu and other distributions are to achieve a breakthrough on the family computer, it's one of the issues which will need to be sorted.

[jimmy the saint]

The issue just seems to provide ammunition for the enemies of open-source.

If the head of Microsoft is asked for a reason why Windows is better than Linux, all he needs to say is that Windows doesn't contain profanities in the software list.

I know it's a tough one to solve - but if Ubuntu and other distributions are to achieve a breakthrough on the family computer, it's one of the issues which will need to be sorted.

I don't know about that. the Open Source movement is a collection of independent people who create things. Some work together and some just do their own thing. When something is created that provides a service better than anything else, it will be accepted.

Remember, you don't know how much profanity is in windows, or its apps, source code, because you will never see it. Besides, I doubt that the creator of brain----- had any corporate goals, or really cares one way or another what any individual thinks about the name of his app or if any one person uses it or not.

[chrisod]

I for one can assure you that Windows has been the cause of a lot more profanity out of my mouth than Ubuntu has :)

[ad_267]

What Ubuntu version are you using?

In 8.10 I can't find a package actually named brainf**k, only libacme-brainfck-perl.
Some of the descriptions contain the full term though.

[GuitarRocker2562]

Yea, the problem is that the creators of brainf**k wanted to call it that, and they are entitled to. Anyway, about profanity in the source, there would be no reason for a user to read linux's source code, for all we know, microsoft's source code can say f**k a thousand times, you would never ever know. Any also, I am sure there are programs for windows that contain profanity, microsoft just doesn't have a place to install programs from the O.S.

[chrisod]

Leisure Suit Larry comes to mind as a Windows program that wouldn't be appropriate for younger minds. Not to mention a Windows PC is far, far more likely to get infected with something that will auto redirect your browser to a porn site. When I think about it, I'd say Linux is actually far, far safer in a family environment. Getting pushed to a porn site via a browser exploit is far more likely than a kid coming across the f word in the source code or even a package description.

Linux is free as in speech, and free as in beer. The free in as speech part comes with speech you may not agree with.

[starcannon]

The issue just seems to provide ammunition for the enemies of open-source.

If the head of Microsoft is asked for a reason why Windows is better than Linux, all he needs to say is that Windows doesn't contain profanities in the software list.

I know it's a tough one to solve - but if Ubuntu and other distributions are to achieve a breakthrough on the family computer, it's one of the issues which will need to be sorted.
There is plenty of xxx software for MS Windows, arguably much more than for any other OS, the difference is that when one searches for software for windows they may use the google search engine, when one searches for software for Ubuntu they use the Synaptic search engine; ironic isn't it that if one runs across the "F" word on google while looking for windows software, that is acceptable; if however, one runs across it on the Synaptic search engine it is not acceptable. Ultimately I don't care what a package is named, I care what the package does, indeed I never even knew about BF until you posted about it, /shrug, and again, it is your responsability as a parent to do the parenting, not Microsoft's, not Canonical's, not Linux's, not GNU's, not Apple's. Accept responsability or don't either way I certainly hope that package availability is never based on psuedo puritan ideals that have not even come close to actually existing in over 125 years.

[Grant A.]

it is your responsability as a parent to do the parenting, not Microsoft's, not Canonical's, not Linux's, not GNU's, not Apple's. Accept responsability or don't either way I certainly hope that package availability is never based on psuedo puritan ideals that have not even come close to actually existing in over 125 years.

+1

You are 100% correct. People say they are getting their kids ready for the real world, and THIS is the result. V-Chips, and their kin have made parents very lazy and thus devaluing the social standards the U.S. once held. Life has cuss words, believe it or not your children WILL hear these words. It is up to YOU to teach your child what it means. And no matter what you do, you can train him, you can stick a shock collar on him (please don't) he WILL still say cuss words, or think them. I know a preacher who is a profane cusser. I am very offended that you want to step upon my rights to FREE speech as declared in over 200 countries, I do not tolerate fascism.

I am aware that this post may have sounded derogatory, but it wasn't. Sometimes the blunt truth is the best truth. I'm not going to sugar coat everything I say on the Internet. I tried to keep this as civil as possible and avoided all the flaming I wanted to do. Please teach your children yourself, who else will? The Internet is not your baby sitter. If you don't want your kid to see cuss words, you might as well have left him illiterate.

[mips]

If the head of Microsoft is asked for a reason why Windows is better than Linux, all he needs to say is that Windows doesn't contain profanities in the software list.


Neither does Ubuntu. Brainfsck is not part of Ubuntu, just some software you can install on Ubuntu.

[jakupl]

But he is right on one thing though.

As ubuntu is getting more and more popular, more software will be available. At some point ubuntu will need more guidelines to moderate the purity of the repositories, also when it comes to cuss words and such.

[diablo75]

What Ubuntu version are you using?

In 8.10 I can't find a package actually named brainf**k, only libacme-brainfck-perl.
Some of the descriptions contain the full term though.

The package itself is actually called "bf".

[mips]

At some point ubuntu will need more guidelines to moderate the purity of the repositories, also when it comes to cuss words and such.

If Ubuntu is going to start censoring other peoples packages then it's going to get a lot of flak!

[jakupl]

If Ubuntu is going to start censoring other peoples packages then it's going to get a lot of flak!

Maybe, but ubuntu should be family friendly.

[mips]

Maybe, but ubuntu should be family friendly.

Do people not get it, stuff like Brainfsck is NOT Ubuntu. Ubuntu cannot go dictating to every OSS developer out there what they can and cannot do.

Ubuntu can however decide what it keeps in it's official repos.

At the end of the day the onus rests on you what repos you enable or disable. if you dont like it disable the repo.

[diablo75]

Maybe, but ubuntu should be family friendly.

Maybe the Internet should be family friendly. How would you pull that one off? I for one think that to call a computer a "family device" when it's attached to the Internet seems contradictory.

[jakupl]

Do people not get it, stuff like Brainfsck is NOT Ubuntu. Ubuntu cannot go dictating to every OSS developer out there what they can and cannot do.

Ubuntu can however decide what it keeps in it's official repos.

At the end of the day the onus rests on you what repos you enable or disable. if you dont like it disable the repo.

But should cusswords be included in the official ubuntu repos? Why is bf in the repos?
That is what I mean by guidelines.

[perlluver]

Brainfsck is in the repos, because some people prefer to program in that language. Really the fist time I heard it, I was like what is that and why are you swearing? Turns out that is what they said, it is a programming language.

[jakupl]

Maybe synaptic package manager could be equipped with a profanity filter? Witch you could turn on if you wanted it.

[diablo75]

Maybe synaptic package manager could be equipped with a profanity filter? Witch you could turn on if you wanted it.

Okay. That could probably be done. But what if you went ahead and decided to install the package? You couldn't censor the contents of the package, in this case, a programing language could you?

[Dragonbite]

Something like this should be filtered in some circumstances, like Edubuntu for instance. Just because the kids can be made to not be able to install it, doesn't mean it cannot be searched.

I think I would prefer talking with my kids about Brain**** the programming language than how many people use the word. At least I can say it was somebody's idea of a joke!

[jakupl]

Okay. That could probably be done. But what if you went ahead and decided to install the package? You couldn't censor the contents of the package, in this case, a programing language could you?


No. Just asterix some letters in the list. So that the description of the package bf would read for instance.


a fast Brainf**k interpreter
bf ('a Brainf**k interpreter') is a simple and fast interpreter
for the esoteric programming language Brainf**k. It offers some
options to define special behavior, which is nice if you take
part in Brainf**k programming contests with special rules.

[diablo75]

I went ahead and filed an idea:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/15935/

[sydbat]

Maybe, but ubuntu should be family friendly.
Who's family? There is no universal morality, and trying to impose one morality on everyone is both fundamentally wrong and a breach of basic Universal Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).

However, as has been stated many times in this thread, it is the parents responsibility to either preview content for their children or discuss what things mean with their children. It is NOT up to Canonical or any other company to impose morality on the general public.

[starcannon]

Maybe synaptic package manager could be equipped with a profanity filter? Witch you could turn on if you wanted it.

This is the only reasonable approach I can think of as well; and even still, I find it a bit ironic that in a society where our kids watch violence and sex on television, surf the internet, hang out at myspace, listen to emnem, and play video games like Grand Theft Auto, that an obscure programming language name that just happens to have the F word in it is a big deal. Family friendly is such a subjective concept anyway; what may be acceptable and family friendly in one house, may be taboo in another, and uva ursi. A filter toggle switch would be fine with me, but I think its just another dillusion and I certainly would not begrudge the Synaptic dev team for not wanting to be bothered with it if they are ever confronted with having to make the descision to code it in or not; interested parties should however bring it to the Synaptic teams attention that such a feature is desired. Linux as has been pointed out many times in the past, is not windows, things don't happen the same way here; its not Mac either, and distributions so far, do not attempt to dictate what others may and may not put in their FOSS.

If one requires a tightly controlled environment, then one may pay the monetary expense of buying a computer with an OS pre-installed that does that for them, or if one must absolutely run FOSS, then one has the option of writing code to modify a piece of software to do what one desires; the choice is rested squarely on ones shoulders. This is not windows, one does not lay the entire FOSS responsability at the feet of a babysitter company, one either actively codes in changes they require, makes suggestions and waits patiently, or accepts things as they are. But to try and insinuate that one has a right to some feature and that someone else should code that feature for them, well thats usually a bit of a stretch, especially in a situation where not only is it possible for one to create their own features, it is encouraged.

GL

[diablo75]

I think what's ironic is the fact that in order for such a feature to be implemented, the source code with HAVE to contain profanity in it so it knows what to filter. It's a conundrum.

[rudihawk]

I think what's ironic is the fact that in order for such a feature to be implemented, the source code with HAVE to contain profanity in it so it knows what to filter. It's a conundrum.

Catch 22 :lolflag:

[Dragonbite]

I think what's ironic is the fact that in order for such a feature to be implemented, the source code with HAVE to contain profanity in it so it knows what to filter. It's a conundrum.

The existence of profanity is not the issue, it is the exposure of it to impressionable minors before they can understand the full extent of what it is, means and is used.

[diablo75]

The existence of profanity is not the issue, it is the exposure of it to impressionable minors before they can understand the full extent of what it is, means and is used.

True, but I was also addressing exactly what the OP said:
If the objective of Ubuntu and other Linux distributions is to provide an operating system which people can use to replace Microsoft software, then it will need to tidy up the use of profanities in the code and application names.

Edit: And yeah, it's been addressed that we have no idea how much profanity is in the source code of OS's like Windows.

Thread's been marked solved, and after PMing the OP myself, he says he's decided to stick with Ubuntu, as well as begin monitoring his son's computer usage more closely.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

For what it's worth, I don't think censoring, err, that word like f*** does much to eliminate it. After all, I highly doubt there are people who have not heard it by the time they are five years old. I also think people really over-react to it. It's just an expressive word. It's a part of the language you speak, and I think the language deserves respect ;)

If I understand correctly, the only reason people have developed such an aversion to "cuss words" is because of the occasion when they are directed towards other people instead of towards unknown entities or simply used for satire. That instance is actually very rare, however, and frankly not to be concerned about since in the absense of one cuss word someone will undoubtedly resort to another, which can only be more antisocial.
For example, Captain Haddock. (http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/lists/curses.html)

As for misusing it, I totally respect that, but people over time learn how not to misuse words like "love", "beautiful", "again", "cool", etc... what is really so different about the other ones aside from the unnecessary stigma that has been painted over them?

Having said all that, I do think the bf package is a tad problematic because it is not unlikely for someone to be searching for brains to eat --- err, brain teasers --- for example :)
Has anyone filed a bug report?
Of course we can't rename the programming language, and censoring its package description will really mess people up. However, the short description (displayed in Synaptic's package list on the Description field) could have "brainf..." shortened to "bf" like the package name so that the "profanity" only appears in the long description that appears below. The short description could also have the fact that it is a humorous, proof of concept programming language explained a bit better so only interested parties (Geeks) go further and so that nobody downloads it thinking it's actually a useful programming language like Vala. Package remains as searchable as it ever was to those who care and doesn't bother anyone else.

Here's another conundrum: What do we do about fsck, which appears at every bootup? Some people almost use it as a drop-in replacement... :o



PS:
That was an interesting thought about filtering language at a lower level! It would probably be completely doable within the GTK toolkit, for example... perhaps by Pango (the font layout / rendering system)?

[Bölvaður]

No one will probably read this but...


I can understand well how much impact it would have on a father to be asked in that way. It probably has much more impact on him than the child it self. And specially when the child asks what it means and the father has no idea it is a programming language designed to be immensely incomprehensible, hence the name.

About having names like BF where children can read is totally acceptable to me. The children only learn that their parents freak out every time they hear some words, which they will hear very seldomly because their world is filtered by their parents.

I was raised up as that father's child and I regret thinking profanity was bad and that my religion that was thrust upon me was the only truth. All in the name of "it is comforting to my child". This is all bs.
It is perversion of language to try to exclude part of that same language and only shows lack of foresight.
I had a friend that grew up in no religion and cursing was an accepted expression. That kid always was one of the smartest people I knew until I started in a university ^^ and has way better life than I have.

I think Im not the only one thinking that protective parents are curse upon their children. Remember the golden path.. the middle way.


This essay was dedicated the memory of all the children killed by the f*** word

[koenn]

No one will probably read this but...

read it & agree :)

There's far worse trouble in the world than a few "curse" words, and kids grow up and will have to lmearn to deal with profanity as well as far worse trouble anyway, one way or an other.

Solutions along the lines of censoring packages and source code, or applying text filters are just bandages. They don't fix the problem, and are mostly useless (a filter on synaptic could be turned off by root, and you need root rights to run synaptic to begin with, so how's that going to work ?). Apart from that, I don't like censorship, nor do I like people imposing their morals and values on other people;

So I propose a different solution :

I imagine that it is possible to create a locale "Puritan American". People who want a so-called 'pure' environment can install the locale, and have all text anywhere in the system 'translated' or replaced by profanity-free English.
The same solution may be applied for political correctness, gender issues, all sorts of cultural taboos, etc.

This solution is more linux-like than the proposed ad hoc, case-by-case fixes as it leverages an existing extensible framework, and is more Ubuntu-like as it isn't biased by anyones morals but accepts that different people have different values, morals and priorities, and caters to that.

[pp.]

I enjoyed setting up Ubuntu 8.10 with my 10 year old son. We learned about Ubuntu together and I was pleased

First of all, I find it great that you undertake such stimulating things with your son.


(This is the name of one of the packages)

"...you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar...".

To my way of thinking, one somewhat vulgar word does not make an obscene or vulgar message. Also, children easily accept that there are adults who choose silly names for no reason at all. After all, many adults are only taller children.

Lastly, I find it slightly amusing that so many people seem to think that the programming language Brain**** is available for Linux only. It takes about three mouse clicks to find a Windows version.

[fredbird67]

Wow! I had never even dreamed about the possibility of something like that in Synaptic, but I guess it doesn't surprise me, but on the other hand, I've never gone checking for anything like that, either.

As a Christian, another thing I would like to see done is, I have noticed a couple of games for Linux that are clean games in and of themselves that I'm sure kids would enjoy, but I've even found objectionable stuff there, too.

In the game "Monsterz", when the game isn't playing and just instead idly scrolling messages, I noticed that the author said "what the f***" in that message. After what I presume were complaints, he changed it to "WTF", but that's still not good enough for me, because I don't want to have to explain what that means to our kids.

Another complaint I have is with "LBreakout", which is...well, a breakout game. In this game, whenever you lose your ball, if you've got the speech enabled in that game, you hear "d***!" or "d*** it!". It's a milder form of profanity, to be sure, but it's something I still have a problem with. I could, however, of course, bypass that problem by substituting the actual sound with something else...yet, at the same time, saving it under the same filename.

Interestingly enough, back when I was a KDE user, before finding myself alienated by KDE4 and therefore switching to GNOME and Ubuntu, I noticed that PCLinuxOS has this game in their repos, and that in their version, when you lose your ball, you instead hear a woman's voice saying "oh no!" (kudos to Texstar or whoever it was on his staff that came up with a way to correct that!).

In both of the above examples, the profanities are clearly completely uncalled for, and the games can survive quite fine without them.

And the source code for the Linux kernel itself...man, I hope every last piece of profanity in that is nothing more than comments, which I should hopefully be able to edit and not bork Ubuntu, and I hope that none of the profanity is used for actual commands and statements...

Oh, and then there's the Ubuntu Calendar. Need I say more?

Is there any way to keep programs in Synaptic from showing up that are objectionable or contain objectionable material? This is a SHAME. :-(

[Bölvaður]

from Synaptic by filtering results only to brain****


a fast Brain**** interpreter
bf ('a Brain**** interpreter') is a simple and fast interpreter
for the esoteric programming language Brain****. It offers some
options to define special behavior, which is nice if you take
part in Brain**** programming contests with special rules.

This is an example of a word made of 2 other words. People that do not know the word as a whole might not realize what is going on. Similarly to the famous dolphin drawing (http://sprinklerdoc.com/dolphin%20bottle.jpg), when you look at it you will see a picture you wouldn't want your kids to see, but when your kids see it they will see dolphins and the curse of knowledge is proven upon you :)
Your kids will probably not be asking what a program name is, because they will just see random name like the ones you see in kde.. it looks foreign.


I'd guess you are like most parents, scared of content that you think for some random reason to be damaging them if they'd see it. Which is totally ok by me. I do not care if you damage your kids' future by filtering out part of the word. But raising your children too strickly can me damaging for them, just put them into bubbles or lock in a cellar, I mean... that's what scared parents unwittingly kind of do anyway.

[WatchingThePain]

The OP has a valid point. It isn't acceptable to leave that language in.
It looks immature that such unnecessary terms were chosen.
When I first saw that I thought it was a virus on the machine.
There must be a program or debugger to change names like that or somehow mask them.

[Grant A.]

Censorship is like taking a steak from a grown man because a baby can't chew it.


What on Earth are you thinking giving your children sudo privileges on your machine anyways?

At the TheManaWorld we came to a consensus, and that was that cursing to the wind is not offensive to anyone, and therefore, cannot be reported unless the cursing is directly aimed at a person, with the intent of harm.

This package does no harm, and the fact that your child even asked you what the word means shows that the word is not really bad, you have just made it bad in your own mind. If you give the words power, then they will always be these fearful, harmful words. The very fact that people see these words as taboo is why we say them in the first place. If no one ever thought of these words as offensive or taboo, then we wouldn't have the problem of people saying them. If you want people to quit saying them, then embrace them, help remove their taboo, and which such, their popularity.

Most cursing is just a way to express to an audience a feeling of anger or frustration. Trying to take the freedom of speech from a person makes you no better than Big Brother in 1984. America was founded on the basic principle of freedom of all types.



I may dislike what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it!


In short, the word is only offensive because you deemed it offensive in your own mind. If it was truly harmful, then your child would as freaked out, as well.

Without the freedom of speech, is there really any freedom at all?

If you cannot respect mine, and others freedom of speech, when used in a non-derogatory way, then I invite you to throw away all your freedom and move to a country where such freedoms don't exist. Perhaps that will teach you the true meaning of freedom that our soldiers fight for everyday, while you sit in your comfortable home trying to rob them from us one by one.

[calrogman]

brainf**k

What is with all the unnecessary self-bowdlerisation/expurgation in this thread? So its called brain****, big whoop.

[WatchingThePain]

I am reminded of that scene in Apocalypse Now when Marlon Brando says 'They train young men to kill but do not allow them to write F**K on the side of their planes because it is obscene'.

I still feel it's a bit wrong hence why we can't write F**K in the forum.

Probably all languages have the equivalent of the word and don't show it on tv or flaunt it in public. It is a reference to a sexual act after all.

Big Brother is watching you.

[CharmyBee]

What is with all the unnecessary self-bowdlerisation/expurgation in this thread?
It's called obeying the Code of Conduct they agreed to and signed up on in the forum. This is a private forum, not a "free speech" venue.

It's bad enough our Linux equivelant of Windows' scandisk is 'fsck'.

[calrogman]

It's called obeying the Code of Conduct they agreed to and signed up on in the forum. This is a private forum, not a "free speech" venue.

It's bad enough our Linux equivelant of Windows' scandisk is 'fsck'.

Here, have a quote.


Mild profanity/swearing is allowed in the context of general speech.

I consider calling a programming language by its correct name perfectly within the CoC.

[starcannon]

It's called obeying the Code of Conduct they agreed to and signed up on in the forum. This is a private forum, not a "free speech" venue.

It's bad enough our Linux equivelant of Windows' scandisk is 'fsck'.

fsck literally means File System Check; it is no more offensive than ls which means List, or dir which means Directory, or cd which means Change Directory... or did someone think it meant Compact Disk? I think the fsck argument is a red herring, and a stretch. And I still maintain that the BF package harms no one; indeed, true harm is caused by censorship.

I'm sure that if a "Family Friendly"(whatever thats supposed to mean) version of Linux is something that enough people really reeeeeally want, they can certainly remaster it for themselves, something that is not out side the capability of the average power user, if their community is large enough they could even get a lot of help in making it go.

Anyone concerned enough about this to build "Ubuntu Family Friendly Remix"? Or is it easier to demand it at no expense to oneself?

[Grant A.]

fsck literally means File System Check; it is no more offensive than ls which means List, or dir which means Directory, or cd which means Change Directory... or did someone think it meant Compact Disk? I think the fsck argument is a red herring, and a stretch. And I still maintain that the BF package harms no one; indeed, true harm is caused by censorship.

I'm sure that if a "Family Friendly"(whatever thats supposed to mean) version of Linux is something that enough people really reeeeeally want, they can certainly remaster it for themselves, something that is not out side the capability of the average power user, if their community is large enough they could even get a lot of help in making it go.

Anyone concerned enough about this to build "Ubuntu Family Friendly Remix"? Or is it easier to demand it at no expense to oneself?

=D>

I remember that in the State of Virginia about a year ago people were complaining that the taxes were so low that the government wasn't getting enough money to do anything. Well, a few months after the start of the complaints, the State of Virginia set up a program where you could raise your own taxes by a few percent. No one signed up. I see the same thing here, and I love this old Open Source motto:



Quit complaining and do it yourself if you want it so bad!

[cariboo]

For those of you that don't know there is an Ubuntu Christian Edition, we even have a subforum (http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=168) for it.

[Corelogik]

I just have to wonder if it's really that big of a problem. Since when did installing and configuring an operating system become a family activity? When I've had to do it, no one in my family wanted anything to do with it, they just said to call them when it was done.

Personally, I don't think Brain**** would be the best name for an application or a programming language. That said, if the developer decided thats what he/she/they wanted to call it, thats their right too. It's not officially part of the Ubuntu Distro, therefor Canonical has no responsibility for it, it's just an add on that is available.

Censoring of any kind is the last thing Canonical needs to do, there are so many more things that more desperately need attention.

[Dragonbite]

Big Brother is watching you.

I'm more afraid of Little Brother!

[koenn]

... It is a reference to a sexual act after all.

Yes, and we can't have that, can we.

[koenn]

It's bad enough our Linux equivelant of Windows' scandisk is 'fsck'.

yes, it's terrible.

Not to mention "mount", "finger", "strip", "touch", ...
"cp" is probably short for copulate - that is unacceptable, it is a sexual act after all. And what to think of ps ? I'm sure it's an obscure reference to golden showers. And I dread the day that I have to explain to my children what 'sm' is (although I could just tell them to RT[F]M : http://www.manpagez.com/man/8/sm/)


On the other hand, I find it strange that no one in this thread seems to have moral objections against programs called "kill" and "killall".

[mcduck]

Personally, I don't think Brain**** would be the best name for an application or a programming language. That said, if the developer decided thats what he/she/they wanted to call it, thats their right too. It's not officially part of the Ubuntu Distro, therefor Canonical has no responsibility for it, it's just an add on that is available.

Actually after taking a quick look at the language's syntax I'd say that's a very good and descriptive name for it. :D

[nothingspecial]

from Synaptic by filtering results only to brain****



This is an example of a word made of 2 other words. People that do not know the word as a whole might not realize what is going on. Similarly to the famous dolphin drawing (http://sprinklerdoc.com/dolphin%20bottle.jpg), when you look at it you will see a picture you wouldn't want your kids to see, but when your kids see it they will see dolphins and the curse of knowledge is proven upon you :)
Your kids will probably not be asking what a program name is, because they will just see random name like the ones you see in kde.. it looks foreign.


I'd guess you are like most parents, scared of content that you think for some random reason to be damaging them if they'd see it. Which is totally ok by me. I do not care if you damage your kids' future by filtering out part of the word. But raising your children too strickly can me damaging for them, just put them into bubbles or lock in a cellar, I mean... that's what scared parents unwittingly kind of do anyway.

No matter how hard I try I can`t see any dolphins. Are you f*****g with me?

[billgoldberg]

For those of you that don't know there is an Ubuntu Christian Edition, we even have a subforum (http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=168) for it.

I though anything religious was banned from this forum?

You either allow it or not.

I'm pissed of that this subforum is on this forum.

[Corelogik]

Actually after taking a quick look at the language's syntax I'd say that's a very good and descriptive name for it. :D

I agree, I looked too. I still think there are many things that need attention more than what some programmer named his language.

[bapoumba]

I though anything religious was banned from this forum?

You either allow it or not.

I'm pissed of that this subforum is on this forum.
Ubuntu-Christian is a ubuntu project. We host ubuntu projects when they do not have a forums of their own. It's moderated by people from this project (along with global staff) and religious discussions should not take place, only discussions regarding the distribution and such.

[billgoldberg]

Ubuntu-Christian is a ubuntu project. We host ubuntu projects when they do not have a forums of their own. It's moderated by people from this project (along with global staff) and religious discussions should not take place, only discussions regarding the distribution and such.

If you make a distro, the least thing you can do is set up a forum (even free ones).

That's a bit pathetic actually.

[etnlIcarus]

yes, it's terrible.

Not to mention "mount", "finger", "strip", "touch", ...
"cp" is probably short for copulate CP is usually an acronym for child porn in and around Aust politics.


I though anything religious was banned from this forum?

You either allow it or not.

I'm pissed of that this subforum is on this forum.


If you make a distro, the least thing you can do is set up a forum (even free ones).

That's a bit pathetic actually.

If it will placate you any: I'm pretty sure UCE isn't actively developed anymore. It's creators realised that trying to carve a niche in the niche was difficult and decided instead to create a christian alternative to youtube.

http://www.thejesustv.com/main/ (actual URL). It's a lot like youtube, only worse.

[bapoumba]

If you make a distro, the least thing you can do is set up a forum (even free ones).

That's a bit pathetic actually.

Well, why ? If they want to use the forums here, we can provide the environment and they do not worry about anything. It's always worked that way with ubuntu third party projects or LoCos. If they have forums of their own, fine, if they do not and request we host them, fine. For ex, Wine was first a third party, and became a mainstream sub-forum. Others have disappeared because the project stopped being maintained. Such is life :)

[Corelogik]

No matter how hard I try I can`t see any dolphins. Are you f*****g with me?

It took a few minutes, but I see them. Look at the shadowed areas.

[Dragonbite]

I've got it!

Ubuntu Freud Edition
:lolflag:

[etnlIcarus]

I've got it!

Ubuntu Freud Edition
:lolflag:
Error messages inform you it's all your parents' fault and the browser redirects all requests to porn sites. Most disturbingly, the hostname is permanently set to, "Mother".

[WatchingThePain]

Call me a wet blanket but I'm just thinking about what kind of image it projects.
I wonder if MS leaves that kind of thing in Windows.
Are we trying to promote swearing because it's 'cool'.
Nothing to do with Christians.
So it wouldn't matter if at 6pm tonight the newsreader on your tv says here is the F*****G news at 6?.
Or the postman hands your wife the mail and says here's you BOMBOCLAAT letters?.
Maybe it's about politeness.

[mcduck]

Call me a wet blanket but I'm just thinking about what kind of image it projects.
I wonder if MS leaves that kind of thing in Windows.
Are we trying to promote swearing because it's 'cool'.
Nothing to do with Christians.
So it wouldn't matter if at 6pm tonight the newsreader on your tv says here is the F*****G news at 6?.
Or the postman hands your wife the mail and says here's you BOMBOCLAAT letters?.
Maybe it's about politeness.
Actually I would find it quite entertaining if the newsreader would say that.

Seriuously, that program is not part of Ubuntu, and it's not even supported by Ubuntu. It simply happens to be available for Ubuntu (as well as for many other operating systems).

If you wish, I can easily find unlimited amounts of Windows programs with just as interesting names. Will you now demand Microsoft to change their OS so that those programs can't be used with Windows?

edit. seriously, here in Finland such language is pretty much freely allowed even on daytime TV, as are nudity and other natural parts of human life. Believe or not, kids are not a bit more messed up here than they are in countries like USA where such things are seen as ultimate evil.. Just to give you people something to think about.. ;)

[WatchingThePain]

Actually I would find it quite entertaining if the newsreader would say that.

Seriuously, that program is not part of Ubuntu, and it's not even supported by Ubuntu. It simply happens to be available for Ubuntu (as well as for many other operating systems).

If you wish, I can easily find unlimited amounts of Windows programs with just as interesting names. Will you now demand Microsoft to change their OS so that those programs can't be used with Windows?

edit. seriously, here in Finland such language is pretty much freely allowed even on daytime TV, as are nudity and other natural parts of human life. Believe or not, kids are not a bit more messed up here than they are in countries like USA where such things are seen as ultimate evil.. Just to give you people something to think about.. ;)

Ah I see.

Windows is no exception either.
In fact some find the Word 'Windows' offensive.
I see such things amuse many people.
I hate to mention this but Scandinavia has a high teen suicide rate and Nudity is a seperate issue.

[mcduck]

Yes, nudity could be seen as a separate issue. But I also mentioned that simple words are not seen that bad in here either.

While Finland isn't part of Scandinavia, the thing about suicide rate is true. But it's not only children, the same applies to whole population. And this seems to be same in all places where people live long times with little or no sunlight. Finland, Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Greenland and Alaska. Probably northern parts of Russia as well. So there's far better explanation for that as well, try spending couple of months without any sunlight and you'll probably find yourself feeling a bit depressed.. :D

[pelle.k]

I hate to mention this but Scandinavia has a high teen suicide rate
Those numbers are quite old. Sweden has a suicide rate comparable to say, the US, according to the WHO (world health organization).
Like in finland, swearing and nudity is not censored in sweden (generally) so i fail to see the connection here (if you implied one) between this liberal stance to "swering and nudity" and suicide rates.

I quote:
"The suicide rate in Sweden, for this age group (15-24), is similar to the American rate. In Sweden, however, the total number of deaths by suicide has dropped significantly since the 1980s, except for this specific group."


http://web4health.info/en/answers/bipolar-suicide-statistics
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/index.html

[WatchingThePain]

Yes, nudity could be seen as a separate issue. But I also mentioned that simple words are not seen that bad in here either.

While Finland isn't part of Scandinavia, the thing about suicide rate is true. But it's not only children, the same applies to whole population. And this seems to be same in all places where people live long times with little or no sunlight. Finland, Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Greenland and Alaska. Probably northern parts of Russia as well. So there's far better explanation for that as well, try spending couple of months without any sunlight and you'll probably find yourself feeling a bit depressed.. :D

True.
I don't have it that bad but the UK is pretty dull and depressing weatherwise.