block on name

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Freitag, den 27.04.2012, 14:55 -0400 schrieb george2:
> I present a request to not move to release F17 until the release name
> is changed in the released code.
> 
> I appreciate the comments public and private but it remains that this
> name may do considerable harm.
> 
>  
> 
> There is not formal criterion for a blocker bug. So I appeal to this
> group, as the last in the community, to present their decision that
> the release is not yet ready, for humanitarian reasons.

Humanitarianism is an universal concept that tries to establish a set of
common values not based on grounds of religion, gender or nationality,
but if I understand you correctly your concerns are religious. Correct?

> You would block if there was a flaw in an important technical element,
> but Fedora is more than technology, it is a community.

So far we had two people raising their concerns, but our community is
much bigger. We certainly don't want to offend anyone, but when dealing
with a world-wide community with many different cultures, it is nearly
impossible to it right for everybody.

> Most who communicated with me believe this is not the place to raise
> this request. That iis too late in the process. The name process was
> discussed by the "board" and they declined to address the concerns
> raised and defer to address naming and word meaning and connotations
> at a future release. If this had been flushed-out when the warning was
> raised, it would not have impacted the placement of the objected-to
> name in so many places and documentation and release notes. I was not
> part of those initial dialogs.

Then please be so kind as to read what has been discussed before.

It was already to late when this topic was brought up on the advisory
board weeks ago and bringing it up now is certainly too late.

The person who brought the issue to the Board's attention was fine with
our approach to address this with a connotation analysis in the future.
This requires that people speak up when the naming suggestions are
announced.

> Some have said to me that it cannot be stopped because "legal" or some
> other group did not object so it is ok for Testing to assume ok.

It's not so much the Red Hat Legal department. They just sort out names
that don't work for legal reasons but they don't force us to pick
anything. The reason we cannot stop it was because 1) it has already
been subject to a vote of the community and b) several groups such as
the design-team, marketing or the ambassadors already prepared for this
name.

> But also note that few women are involved in the approval processes.
> The banking crises was in part formed by many individuals sensing
> something wasn't right but did not take any personal responsibility to
> act.

I am sorry, I don't understand what this has to do with gender or
financial crisis. When speaking of woman, please note the the FPL is one
and did not have any objections.

> Consider please:
> 
>    if one headmaster says the release is inappropriate to use in the
> teaching or desktop situation;
> 
>    if one religious leader objects to its use in that the supporting
> material for the name says "this is your new god"

AFAIK none of our marketing materials says this.

>    if one advocate of equality for women speaks up

Would you mind explaining what this has to do with equality of woman?

>    if one government department says its use violates discrimination
> in the workplace laws

Again I wonder what this has has to do with discrimination. Would you
mind to elaborate this one, too? 

>    if one parent objects
> 
>         and it is picked up by the press....
> 
>  
> 
> I don't know the future, but I think that releasing with this name has
> the potential to be a destroyer of the momentum that the contributors
> to Fedora with the support of RedHat have worked to build. 

I agree we should be more careful in the future, but this requires that
our community speaks up as problems occur and not 6 months later.

Kind regards,
Christoph