A "joke" in the glibc manual

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A "joke" in the glibc manual—targeting a topic that is, at best, sensitive—has come up for discussion on the glibc-alpha mailing list again. When we looked at the controversy in May, Richard Stallman had put his foot down and a patch removing the joke—though opinions of its amusement value vary—was reverted. Shortly after that article was published, a "cool down period" was requested (and honored), but that time has expired. Other developments in the GNU project have given some reason to believe that the time is ripe to finally purge the joke, but that may not work out any better than the last attempt.

The joke in question refers to a US government "censorship rule" from over two decades ago regarding sharing of information about abortion. It is attached to documentation of the abort() call in glibc and the text of it can be seen in the patch to remove it. One might think that an age-old US-centric joke would be a good candidate for removal regardless of its subject matter. That it touches on a topic that is emotionally fraught for many might also make it unwelcoming—thus unwelcome in documentation. But, according to Stallman, that's not so clear cut.

The GNU project recently adopted the "GNU Kind Communications Guidelines", authored by Stallman, that seek to help maintain a welcoming tone in the project's communications. With that in mind, Matthew Garrett re-proposed removing the joke:

Carlos O'Donell, who is one of the glibc maintainers and who called for the cool-down period, was supportive of the patch (as he was back in May). He praised the new guidelines and said that he expected them to "cover all forms of communication including the manual, website, and social media, and not just email". But he studiously avoided talking about the content of the joke as a reason for removing it; instead he noted the confusion that it has caused along the way and that it "does not support the present intent of the manual, which is to provide accurate technical information for the GNU C Library".

O'Donell said that wanted to hear from Alexandre Oliva, who had reverted the change back in May, to see if he still had objections. Oliva replied that he did not think the guidelines should cover manuals, just interactive discussion forums, such as email, IRC, and social media. But he did concede that he may have misunderstood the intent of the guidelines and wanted to hear what Stallman had to say on that.

For his part, Stallman seems to agree with Oliva:

He noted that he had recently added a statement into the GNU maintainer guide that "humor is welcome _in general_" and that the project rejects "the idea of 'professionalism' which calls for deleting humor because it is humor" (though that does not yet appear in the guide at the time of this writing). In order to even consider the question of the abort() joke, there are several "broader issues" that need to be resolved first, he said.

According to Stallman, the joke "opposes censorship", which is also a position of the GNU project, so the joke is "not an unrelated political issue". However, the oblique reference to a gag rule on abortion information, which was imposed on organizations receiving US aid off and on since 1984, may not really come through in the joke. Even many US-based glibc users might be hard-pressed to link it to the Mexico City policy that it is targeting. Even if they did, a joke buried in a manual for an unrelated C library is not likely to have any real impact on the rule (which has been rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republican presidents since it was first enacted).

When pressed for more information about what these larger issues are, as O'Donell did, Stallman counseled patience. He did not offer any more information than that; perhaps the discussion has moved to a private mailing list or the like.

For many, including me, it is a little hard to understand why there is any opposition to removing the joke at all. It is clearly out of place, not particularly funny, and doesn't really push the GNU anti-censorship philosophy forward in any real way even if you grant that anti-censorship is a goal of the project (which some do not). There are, of course, those who oppose removing it because they are opposed to "political correctness" and do not see how it could be "unwelcoming", but even they might concede that it is an oddity that is poked into a back corner of a entirely unrelated document. And it is not hard for many to see that tying the topic of abortion to a C function might be upsetting to some; why waste a bunch of project time defending it when it has effectively no impact in the direction that Stallman wants, while putting off some (possibly small) percentage of glibc manual readers?

As was noted in the article back in May, the GNU project is run by a (hopefully benevolent) dictator in Stallman. Ultimately, he gets to decide what goes into project communications and can dictate the tone for its community (thus the guidelines). It is a bit weird to claim that all project communications except the manuals need to be "kind"; Stallman hasn't exactly said that, but that is kind of how it comes across. Digging in his heels, for unclear reasons, on this particular issue just seems like something a benevolent dictator might find a way to avoid.