
When software offends, the pantyshot package controversy - grncdr
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/when-software-offends-the-pantyshot-package-controversy/509
======
Harkins
I look at the choice of "Misaka" after "pantyshot" and think this is
unambiguously an example for talking about the recent topic of not tolerating
assholes in open source software.

~~~
duodecim
Man spends hours developing free software for the world and gives it a tongue
in cheek name. World judges man and software by name, wants the software out
of repository and the man gone from the planet.

I think John Cleese would like to send you all to the front line of a gruesome
war – in panties, of course – to learn to deal with an actual problem.

~~~
Harkins
That's a big brush you're painting with, but the core is true: this is about
judging how they chose to name their project.

~~~
dlss
I'm sure I'm not the only one who changed his project name after seeing how
crazy people can get over a name.

It's free publicity, after all :p

------
Quarrelsome
There are times where I envy the straight forward rationale of these beasts of
burden we instruct in our daily routines. The name of the package is
irrelevant to them, its just an identifier that represents a thing that does
stuff.

As software engineers you'd hope we were some of the most logical peoples of
this planet but then we find ourselves tripping over our own societal taboos
and inferences we are perceiving that didn't even exist in the first place.

I mean I can understand the odd chuckle over the BackendInspector class but to
take something to this level just over the name? I'd be interested to hear the
full coverage that this got cause the original author appears to be completely
distraught over the reaction:

[http://fossil.instinctive.eu/libupskirt/wiki?name=about-
the-...](http://fossil.instinctive.eu/libupskirt/wiki?name=about-the-name)

Makes me wonder what does more harm. A potentially offensive name or people's
reaction to said name. I'm leaning towards the latter based on that link.

~~~
tptacek
I don't know how upset she really is here (the page you linked to seems pretty
measured) but she's had an "us vs. them" narrative going with her library for
awhile, ever since Github forked it. I can't find it now, but she had a
commit-for-commit commentary for Github's "Redcarpet" fork which at times
seemed unhinged.

I paid attention to this only because we helped with Github's audit of the
code, and am motivated to comment here primarily as an opportunity to say:

 _Make sure your Markdown library is secure_.

Everyone seems at some point to end up with a C-language Markdown
implementation, and nobody I know of has managed to implement Markdown in C
without memory corruption bugs... you know, the kind that let attackers upload
their own code onto your servers.

~~~
Quarrelsome
Now this is what I'm much more interested in. Security of the code is a off-
the-charts more important than what the package happens to be called. ;)

Thanks for the insight. The article suggests the author is upset due to
controversy due to the name but I assume her anguish is more due to the
forking of the library and what she feels is the removal of her credit?

~~~
tptacek
No; Github gave her credit immediately on starting the project. She was
irritated that they chose to fork her code at all, and disapproved of many of
the changes. But her code, as Github found it, was absolutely not safe to run
on a popular public web app.

~~~
Quarrelsome
This is so much more of a better story than the OP. Thanks for filling in the
gaps, much appreciated.

~~~
grncdr
Having submitted the OP, I completely agree. You never know where an
informative tptacek post will show up... :)

------
Mz
I was surprised at how the article characterized the terms "pantyshot" and
"upskirt" -- how extremely negative. My familiarity with the terms is not from
porn but from celebrities who, whoops, get caught flashing their panties
inadvertently in public. So to my mind this was relatively innocent activity
and I would have never thought of it in the extremely negative way the article
portrays it.

Also, people often have no idea how badly something like this will be viewed
by others. I have seen several instances of that sort of thing here on HN and
(IIRC) in every case where I have commented on it, simply informing them of
how negatively their term was viewed caused them to change it (either the name
of the product/site or some wording on it). They just didn't know.

Edit: Can anyone explain to me why this would be downvoted? Thanks in advance
for any enlightenment.

~~~
dotBen
_My familiarity with the terms is not from porn but from celebrities who,
whoops, get caught flashing their panties inadvertently in public. So to my
mind this was relatively innocent activity_

Famous female celebrity gets out of car, inadvertently flashes underwear due
to short skirt, photographer snaps said inadvertent underwear flash and
publishes results for titillation and ridicule.

Innocent on the part of the celebrity, sure. But not innocent on the part of
the photographer which I think squarely places this within Violet Blue's
assertion of upskit/pantyshot being 'an attack on a female'.

~~~
pyre
She also characterized it as 'illegal,' which may be the case for hidden
cameras, but I doubt it is the case for celebrities in a public space.

~~~
brigade
In the US, it's illegal in "circumstances in which a reasonable person would
believe that a private area of the individual would not be visible to the
public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private place."

~~~
pyre
I find that a bit debatable though. It seems like these laws are specifically
targeting hidden cameras in public spaces. If I'm a celebrity wearing a skirt
(or kilt) with no undergarments on, who has an army of photographers capturing
everything I do, how can I reasonably think that my private area would remain
'not visible' when performing certain maneuvers.

------
benbeltran
Sexism and Racism: two cards people play all the time for ever-annoying
reasons. They're the kind of arguments you "can't be against" because, how can
you be against stopping racism/sexism? They're also the kind of arguments that
keep sexism/racism happening. We should focus on the important parts:

Are you offended by it? - Deal with it or don't use it or politely make your
opinion known to the author. Be an adult and don't "Quit Open Source" or "Ban
the package" or "Rant about how Open Source developers are discriminating
white males" because that just makes you look silly and chlidish.

Did you name it that way? - if you want widespread usage of your package, know
that a polarizing name and one that will be hidden under the throves of porn
in a search engine can impact the adoption of your piece of software. Also, it
will make you look Silly and childish.

We are all educated and grown people, we should be able to make these
decisions easily in our lives.

If I make a CoffeeScript to Assembly translator called "Beaner" I should at
least know that Some people won't appreciate it and call me racist and
probably some mexican will quit open source software forever. And I'm taking
that risk by naming my package that way.

We shouldn't be afraid of being offended. I'm offended all the time and it
doesn't stop me from living my life properly.

~~~
yid
You're asking people not to have a knee-jerk reaction to offensive language,
but you're having a knee-jerk reaction to people being offended. Some people
might choke on their morning coffee when reviewing a pull request for
"pantyshot", but the majority of us just want a bit of civility (not unlike
the rules of HN).

~~~
duodecim
Nobody chokes on their morning coffee when reviewing a pull request for
"pantyshot". Such people ought to be sent to the front line in all-out war to
learn to deal with some real issues in life.

Besides, men wear panties too. I've seen them do it.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
I don't see the connection to being sent to war: It seems like you are trying
to say "because this (war) is more unpleasant, you have nothing to complain
about", which makes no sense.

~~~
dlss
I think he was trying to say that experiencing high magnitude discomfort puts
low magnitude discomfort in perspective.

Also, knowing several Iraq veterans before and after, it seems to get you very
comfortable with offensive language :p

------
russell
This is interesting on multiple levels. There was the Python Software
Foundation's decision to be reactive rather than proactive. Then why give it
such a name? Esp. since the author was a woman. Who didnt speak English, and
used a name suggested by a friend(?). There we arrive at what I consider to be
reprehensible behavior: to expose someone to ridicule in the guise of giving
help.

~~~
btmorex
I'm not sure I would say she doesn't speak English. Check out her blog post
about this: [http://fossil.instinctive.eu/libupskirt/wiki?name=about-
the-...](http://fossil.instinctive.eu/libupskirt/wiki?name=about-the-name)

Especially:

 _I did know the sexual and voyeurism connotations of the word “upskirt” and I
was very hesitant to actually use it. For the record, my limited grasp of
slang English means that I genuinely had no idea where it lied on the
offensiveness scale, and whether it could be covered up as something more
harmless (and have it be more of an innuendo than of a basic offensive word)._

I'm not sure what to make of that, but I do think that naming software with
any sort of sexual innuendo regardless of how offensive it is is a very poor
choice. More than anything else, I feel embarrassed to be in tech when this
sort of thing happens.

~~~
russell
I stand corrected. Wow. Best to avoid slang in a language you dont understand
very well.

~~~
Mz
Not just slang (I mean not just intentional use of slang). I used to talk to a
man online who was very interested in politics. Because I am American and he
was not (and I think English was like his fourth language), he routinely
referred to President Bush as "your Bush". I'm female, so this made me very
uncomfortable and I finally asked him "Do you know what that means in English
slang?" He wasn't attempting to use slang, but boy did it sound bad to me.

There are all kinds of landmines when you try to speak another language. I
have lots of humorous/embarrassing stories from growing up in a bilingual
family.

------
Joakal
Similar situation of insulting source code: <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=477454>

------
rmc
One reason you shouldn't name your software something like this is because it
will be hard too google for. All the web results for this will be for the porn
version of the name. You shouldn't name your software something that's hard
for people to find

~~~
russell
Kind of the inverse of rule 43. If you search for porn long enough on the
internet, you will end up with software.

------
tripzilch
Well, reading the _actual explanation_ page by the author of libupskirt, it's
obvious she's not upset by being tricked into using that name, but she's upset
because of the _reactions_ of _other people_ to that name.

She's quite clear she "did know the sexual and voyeurism connotations of the
word “upskirt”", but she was caught completely surprised by the _shitstorm_
created by people that felt offended by it.

So if you're looking for blame, blame the white knights on their high horses
of political correctness, for giving somebody so much shit over what could
have been just a childish joke [like there are many others, as pointed out
ITT], that she just wanted to quit and have nothing to do with the entire
shitbasket anymore.

Just read it. Even after knowing exactly what it meant, her horror is at the
reaction of the angry PC mob, that is making this word out to be much worse
than the harmless innuendo she intended it to be.

This woman is clearly intimidated, so much she's making blanket apologies left
and right and just wants this to be over. But ask yourselves, _who's she
intimidated by?_

------
xnxn
Serious question: can we fork the library, s/pantyshot/somethingelse/g, submit
it to PyPI, and then just nobody use the original?

~~~
duodecim
No, because it would be hypocrite to rate the importance of the name higher
than the value of the code, and then nevertheless try to steal the code from
the guy who spent all the time developing it.

The guy wrote the code and gave it a tongue in cheek name. Deal with it. What
the hell is wrong with this world? Moral outrage in the sub-urbian latte
crowd? Pillows not fluffed enough?

~~~
dotBen
Since when is forking open source code 'stealing' it?

 _Oh boy, what can of worms am I opening here..._

~~~
smosher
_Since when is forking open source code 'stealing' it?_

According to the FSF? Usually when you do something with it that RMS doesn't
like. GPLv3 anyone? (Sorry I couldn't resist.)

------
tmcw
Seems relatively simple. This Frank Smit guy loves anime in a borderline-
creepy way and is, like the original developer, not a native english speaker.

[1]: <http://61924.nl/04-11-2011/ubuntu-10-dot-10.html>

[2]: <http://61924.nl/about.html>

~~~
robotblake
Just curious, but how is this borderline creepy?

~~~
slowpoke
It isn't. It's just people talking about things which they know next to
nothing about. Move on, nothing to see here.

------
noselasd
Tbh, I slightly frowned when I installed the unicode-nazi python package last
week. It's just not what you want to call your package..

~~~
slowpoke
Uh, since it's quite obviously a pun on "grammar-nazi" I fail to see your
point. Even the description of the package makes it obvious:

 _Annoying helper module that finds unicode/bytestring comparisions and other
problems._

------
p_l
I wonder how the hell did they focus on Misaka and upskirts... cause anyone
who read/watched the material would know, that the running gag is that her
clothing makes any try at pantyshot futile... and thus doesn't really care
about moving in a way that would normally expose her.

I guess my astonishment comes from the fact that to me, the name reminds me
not of a minor gag, but rather of the mentally-broken, war-torn 13~14yo who
could take over any computer system, and use coins (and other conducting
materials) as hypervelocity projectiles (thus her nickname, "Railgun").

So... once again, media jumping to worst possible interpretation?

~~~
eropple
It's not only "media" that thought he was a tool for it. The relation was made
by a member of the Python community.

------
teyc
Python Package Index is a product of many years of effort by many people. It
is not only used in hobby projects but also within enterprises. If Frank's
actions harm PPI's upstanding, then he should volutarily leave PPI and
distribute his packages through alternative mechanisms. All you need is for
some nutcase to make fun of a prophet and lodge it with PPI for all of us to
be tarred with the same brush.

------
killerswan
Personally, I'm not surprised the name came from IRC...

------
dlss
> It’s not that the names were simply sexual in nature: it was that they
> targeted a women over the very thing that makes them a minority in the
> Python community in the first place: you could call it a sexual exploit.

I don't understand this part -- what is she saying causes women to be a
minority in the Python community?

------
ignifero
There's another domain where predominantly white males give arbitrary names:
Physics. While there are many examples of funny or quirky names there, none of
them is offensive. For the extra reason that the innuendo loses its humor
after the first time you use it, and these names are meant to stick
indefinately.

P.S. Also Biology, but these people are not even comfortable with sonic the
hedgehog.

~~~
possibilistic
Biologist here.

The _Drosophila_ community is rife with humorous (and sometimes offensive)
gene names like "Cheap Date" (ethanol sensitivity), "Ken and Barbie"
(genitalia fail to develop), and "Fruity" (male fruit flies show no attraction
to females) -- that one was so controversial it got renamed "fruitless".

<http://flybase.org/reports/FBgn0004652.html>

The research communities for organisms such as _E. coli_ tend to think this
practice is immature. Genes should follow a specific nomenclature: fis (factor
for inversion stimulation), mot (motility), etc.

This issue with software has been around a while, too. A ton of people dislike
the name "Gimp", for instance.

~~~
ignifero
Wow, i didn't know fruity was a slang word for gay. But see, the community
changed it eventhough it's a milder case than the one presented here (as
"pantyshot" presumably refers to a non-consensual/harassment act (not that i
am not sympathetic to gay drosophilas))

------
MostAwesomeDude
Well, I'd better go rename my Burger package before it offends vegetarians.

~~~
michaels0620
It's not the same thing. As the article discusses, it's not just that the name
is sexual but that it refers to an act that victimizes its subject because
they are unaware it is happening.

