It seems like a really silly hill to die on, but then this whole debate seems like a boring pissing match. My only thought on finishing the article was, “what a waste of my time this was,” and that was just reading it, not living it. Maybe there’s some strategic value to making a big deal of something trivial like this, but I don’t see it. I just come away from this thinking Stallman is a controlling, thin-skinned, dick. If that was his plan, then as they say, mission accomplished. I couldn’t care less about the politics, it’s the personality that’s offensive.

* I couldn’t care less about the politics, it’s the personality that’s offensive.*

Fair enough, though for me the personality is what I like. It's the same way I feel about ESR, even if I don't agree with whatever point is being made, I enjoy intelligent outspoken brashness.

I enjoy that when the intelligence and brashness has a point other than stroking its own ego. Linus for example, is an example of the positive (imo) face of what you’re talking about, because it’s not about something petty from nearly 30 years ago and his desire to be in some kind of control. You know that even when he’s harsh and outspoken, odds are he’s making a really good and relevant point.

I’m not seeing that here, just a lot of heat and no light.

Really? To be honest, Linus also comes across as an egomaniac. Sometimes, he says what must be said. Mostly, he's just extremely abusive. The problem with BDFL positions is it removes the sort of checks and bounds that people need, to stop them growing into assholes.

The advantage is, for better or worse, they tend to have the kind of vision and consistency that allows a project to thrive.

I think it'd be nice if they had a HR department they had to answer to, or something like that.

I don't think Torvalds grew into anything; the Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate from '92 already had quotes like:

your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix. I can only hope (and assume) that Amoeba doesn't suck like minix does.

>> there's no "political correctness" here at all.

> Of course there is, Is anyone trying to remove apt-get moo?

If the joke only showed up in some joke manpage, that would be one thing. But the joke was in a real manpage, and I think it seemed out of place regardless of one’s political leanings.

it is mentioned in --help as super cow powers, and I'm glad it is.

Wow then we need to annihilate the Gnus manual...

I think there is a difference. Not so much because of political correctness, but because it is an inherently political joke.

Secondly, the joke is extremely US centric, and might make no sense to somebody now familiar on the US stance on abortion and its political impact.

I think it's misplaced for those reasons, and I am left-leaning and pro-choice. So while i agree with the political viewpoint in the joke, i don't think it should be in the software documentation.

That being said, i think easter eggs are fine, but this feels misplaced to me.

How is moo related to political correctness? Doesn't it just ask if you've mooed today? That's an innocent joke that you never need to stumble upon.

Joking about social/religious/political topics in deep technical docs is something else entirely, unless I'm missing something about moo.

I brought up moo because it is not related to political correctness.

EDIT: If you're not a native speaker, I'll try to explain it better. First I quoted the statement that it was not about political correctness. This indicates that the next line is in direct response. Then I wrote "of course there is" Which is to say that of course the comment in the original post was about political correctness. Then I gave the example of apt-get moo as a joke that is very public, and not political at all, to point out that nobody wants to get rid of it.

> Of course there is, Is anyone trying to remove apt-get moo?

If forced to choose, I would actually prefer touchy political jokes in the documentation over non-political easter eggs baked into the code, because IAGNI.