Bert Boerland has posted an interesting entry on his blog, prompted by the appearance of the free porn module in contrib, which I think raises a point that should be called to the attention of the wider community at large. (http://willy.boerland.com/myblog/node/7477)

Where do we, as a community, draw the line?

As will be evident in the comments that follow Bert's post, I'm against drawing one at all, personally, but think the idea is one that should probably be discussed. Ordinarily, I would think it antithetical even to raise the subject at all, one of the things I like best about this community is that when it comes to the software, there are no politics, no differences of personal philosophy (outside of what the Right Thing is, in terms of standards) -- what there is remains perfectly inclusive and open to everyone.

But I'm also the last person I'd want making any particular descision in this regard, and if there is any merit in my own view, it will be because it is shared by the community as a whole.

What do you guys think? Discuss!

Comments

drupalzack’s picture

Personally I don't think Drupal should get involved. How people use Drupal should be upto them. Don't we have enough controls by our government? :)

kozuch82’s picture

Didn't get your post...

Jan

----

The Smart Boy - Free Scripts and Linux Guides
Support Drupal! - Drupal at Free Scripts Forum

bonobo’s picture

*Warning-- ironic statement to follow*
Phew.

I'm just glad to see someone doing some work to create a friendly environment for porn on the internet. Because those guys really need more help making the most of the communication tools afforded by technology.
*end irony*

I love it when people cast pornography as a free speech issue -- as if all the fifty year old guys on the web surfing for pictures of Britney Spears are doing it simply to exercise their freedom of expression. While there are issues relating to freedom of expression, most people use these issues as excuses to do nothing.

So let's be honest. The overwhelming majority of the porn industry is exploitive. But, like any industry that underpays and exploits labor, there is profit to be had. This module simplifies the process of profiting from exploitation. So, if this module is hosted on drupal.org, an argument could be made that our work (in the form of patches, code, testing, free advice in the forums) will help support -- albeit indirectly -- a tool that furthers exploitation.

Software is neutral. The uses of software are not.

Also, while IANAL, I wonder if this raises any legal issues? What if someone using this module pulled copyright-protected material onto their website? Could Drupal (which is, in the absence of any foundation, I think? Dries?) be held liable? Given that Drupal is hosted on servers in the US, the land of the lawsuit (gotta love that freedom of expression!), I'm curious to hear any informed legal opinions on this.

There are other arguments to be made (much porn appears to implicitly/explicitly convey misogynist attitudes, ties between the sex trade in developing nations and the porn industry, etc) but for the sake of this discussion, that's overly complicated.

Drupal has had much success as a tool for community organizing -- ie, a tool for focusing the voice of likeminded people. These groups can be to the right, the left, and espouse all types of views -- but Drupal empowers people to speak with a unified voice. That's the beauty of Drupal -- it can be used to do whatever the site admin wants. However, the fetchgals module seems to break that mould -- it doesn't really have a purpose that would empower anyone. While the text on the module's page has been edited since the original announcement, the original wording of the module's page clearly illustrates the goals/uses of this module:

There's only one thing better than porn and that's FREE PORN!!!

Community plumbing, eh?

Cheers,

Bill

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http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers

Max Bell’s picture

Bill:

In this instance, however, its not about porn, per se -- all the free porn module did was to serve as a catalyst to get somebody to wonder if there should be a line drawn somewhere -- is there a standard for what is acceptable to use it for? Could we enforce such a thing if everyone wanted one? The idea was not to defend pornography as protected speech, per se.

In terms of liability, I can't imagine anything licensed under GPL to accept liability on the part of the author -- certainly this isn't the case with commercial software and so I would tend to expect it would be even less so for free software.

While it never surfaced specifically in my own remarks, I nearly do feel inclined to want to say Drupal should be limited to progressive and democratic politics (which is silly and counterproductive) -- but I also recall Apple at one time refusing to do business with the US Military for any reason (don't know if this is still true, and frankly, I hope not -- one does not discriminate in the name of idealism and anyone who felt this sort of thing is the right thing to do would do welll to remember they're on a network created to provide intelligence in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange ;)

Again, though -- while the module just seemed out of character with the community and the software, I, of course, welcome it and anything else anyone cares to contribute or whatever purpose they'd like to put the software towards.

Beyond that, though, I'm pleased that this topic has gone all but ignored and kind of hope it stays that way. To me, that would signal a lack of interest in even considering that Drupal might be anything other than software for everyone.

bonobo’s picture

Hello, Max,

I agree, it is a slippery slope --

It's also a little odd that drupal.org won't host code licensed under the LGPL, but that it will host, as you say, a module that seems "out of character with the community" -- to me, these two lines don't seem that far apart -- all distinctions are, arguably, lines in the sand.

RE: "What about freedom of speech that does not involve porn" -- free speech is free speech, and worthy of complete protection. But, as I see it, it's a stretch to say that a module designed expressly for the purpose of harvesting porn isn't about porn. Playing the "free speech" card in this case seems like a convenient excuse, and can be interpreted as tacit approval.

RE: "I nearly do feel inclined to want to say Drupal should be limited to progressive and democratic politics (which is silly and counterproductive)" -- same here -- and I refrained from saying that for the exact same reason :)

Really, I'm mildly conflicted on this one -- I'm not a fan of book burning, virtual or otherwise. But, on the flip side, should any of the resources of drupal.org be consumed supporting/hosting this particular module? I don't think so.

Cheers,

Bill

-------
http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers

fleshpile’s picture

Unfortunately for fascists, it's not supposed to matter what you say 50 year old men can surf the net for (at least in most civilized countries). They are supposed to be free to search for almost anything they want. They find your taste for unequivocal "ethics" and "morality" quite fashionable in communist China. In America, at least, porn IS free speech, no matter if you say it's not. I know you don't like hearing that argument because it's bulletproof.

Your points are all messed up. That the software is neutral is correct. Your charge that to support, develop, test, or use Drupal is furthering exploitation because there is a tool that allows for the collection of information and files from the internet is completely ludicrous. According to your logic, then by simply working on my computer I am supporting virii and terrorism because there are methods out there that allow for using a computer as a tool for evil. Like you said, it is the user, not the software. Why then would Drupal.org or the Drupal software be regarded a tool for exploitation because someone was able to modify it to that end? Why not say that Internet Explorer is a tool for exploitation because you can use it to surf for porn?

And if I remember correctly, the GPL forbids Drupal from having any say as to what people use Drupal for until someone tries to redistribute Drupal.

I really hate how you tried to use FUD to scare people in to thinking somehow that Drupal could be held responsible or culpable. Why don't we just blame car companies for dumb accidents then?

You don't like the mod, don't use it. Or just replace the porn links to harvest what you want (no, you won't be an accomplice to exploitation by highlighting and deleting text. I promise). IT'S UP TO THE USER.

IntnsRed’s picture

What is there to enforce? Is someone going to tell the mod author that he can't write code for Drupal? That doesn't sound very GPLish -- it flies in the face of the GPL's idea of software freedom.

What else could be done? What if the author takes to mentioning his free porn module in the signature of his forum posts? Will that be verboten too?

And where does this censorship -- controversial word I know, but that's what it is -- stop?

Yes, this is a free speech issue. A couple of weeks ago I created a tarball of 999 quotes for Drupal's quotes module and created a new forum thread about it. Quite a few of those quotes had political content and they were more leftish than rightish. Should there be equal time? Should that topic be killed because it might possibly offend someone? Or will only "very unpopular" things be censored?

It goes without saying that you shoud not try to annoy people.

But equally important is the concept that you shouldn't be too easily annoyed.

sepeck’s picture

In general we try and keep Drupal.org focused on technical issues and implementation. If something is illegal, it will be removed. If it is spam it is removed and the user is blocked. Site maintainer's guide

In general, many different people with many diverse viewpoints are using Drupal. As a result, keeping an inidviduals specific advocacy off Drupal.org is generally what we do. If something is borderline or of concern, it gets discussed amongst the site maintainers and action is decided on.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

pobster’s picture

As the author of said module, I feel I should pipe in around now... ;o)

On it's own the module does nothing. Absolutely not a thing... What it does do though is to manage commands passed to an external program via a "shell_exec" command. The program in question is obviously, "Fetchgals" which is hosted by sourceforge. It's this webspider perl script which does all the 'dirty work' (weak pun intended). So in effect the module itself and Drupal, are no more responsible for being able to use fetchgals than say perl or even linux are for giving the ability to run scripts like these in the first place.

About me:

  • I'm 30 years old
  • I'm a futures trader living in the UK
  • I'm not religious, although as a child I did attend 'Sunday School' for several years
  • I'm nigh on married to my girlfriend (who lives with me)
  • I am completely normal
  • I give a LOT of support to charity, particularly to one charity that grants wishes to terminally ill children

See? I'm not a bad person ;o) And tbh, the only reason this module exists is because I'm learning php and was just reading through the php website when I found the "exec" command... And I thought... Wow! That's handy, I bet there's loads of things I can integrate into Drupal using that... And so I googled... And I didn't really find anything either, all that useful or all that easy looking to incorporate :o( Anyways, just as a test, I thought I'd try my hand at integrating fetchgals as I've been running it on a daily cronjob for probably about a year now and I figured it'd be an easy test of what could be accomplished as I know how to use it and experience of how it works.

It's a pretty simple module as I'm no great programmer, but it turned out *much* better than I expected it to - hence how comes I submitted it to the repository. I was completely taken by surprise when it actually got published; even I never thought it'd get approved! Not that I consider the module to be inappropriate, like I said before - without the fetchgals package, it doesn't actually do anything at all. It's just that it's essentially useless... Yes, you can use it to download porn, but you can't really display that porn on your website as the content obviously belongs to the sites where it was downloaded from (even if it was in their 'free' area). I'm assuming it must be legal to display a list of links to porn sites as sites such as www .thehun.com exist and must do very well from advertising, but who'd want to take the risk of being sued? It's for 'personal use' only as far as I can see? Although strangely, I noted that the actual fetchgals package has NO warnings or legal jargon regarding using it at all? Maybe that's covered by being 'public domain'? I don't know...

At the end of the day though, I don't use the Scripture Filter module and so if someone doesn't want to use my module then they don't have to download it. The stats of the fetchgals project haven't exactly shot up since my modules release:

https://sourceforge.net/project/stats/?group_id=110338&ugn=fetchgals&typ...

As for whether it should be here for download or not. I'm in agreement with drupalzack, "How people use Drupal should be upto them". I will use this module myself, but I've no intention of forcing it upon other people by placing a link to it in my signature. I'm moderately embarrassed that it's even here at all and I certainly don't care if I'm the only person in the entire world that does use it. I've written something that works and it's now freely downloadable for anyone to use if they so wish. I like to think of Drupal as about freedom of choice more than anything.

Pobster

drupalzack’s picture

As long it is not illegal or disgusting I think it shouldn't be removed from the repository. I wouldn't want a 'minister of vice and virtue' in Drupal! :)

sepeck’s picture

I was answering his question in general. Not your module specifically. Drupal.org should remain focused on technical issue's. Not advocacy in general. Sometimes descriptive phrasing needs to be considered in a more generic light but beyond that, technical focus is king here in general. Your module was published without discussion. You're description was updated but that's it.

Spam and it's ilk shall be removed. Always. As will links to spam sites. Always. Those sites have their own page rank and don't need links from Drupal.org to help them.

I don't actually care what your module does and won't be using either it or the scripture filter. Neither fit the types of sites I do. The question wasn't about you. My answer wasn't about you. You're background isn't relavant to the answer I gave. Besides, almost everyone thinks they are completely normal and it's other people who are different. Again, the definition of normal is subjective and not relavant.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

pobster’s picture

Sorry if that wasn't clear, but I wasn't replying to you specifically - I was just replying on the thread...

I completely agree with all your points anyway ;o) I certainly wasn't disagreeing with anything!

Pobster