Packages

Description:

The description of the package need to be changed to accommodate:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html

To refer to published works as “assets”, or “digital assets”, is even worse than calling them “content” — it presumes they have no value to society except commercial value.

community/openmw 0.41.0-3.hyperbola1
    A libre engine reimplementation for Morrowind-based role-playing games, without wizard installation support to install nonfree assets from Morrowind to run Morrowind

Description:

The description of the package need to be changed to accommodate:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html

To refer to published works as “assets”, or “digital assets”, is even worse than calling them “content” — it presumes they have no value to society except commercial value.

community/retroarch-assets-xmb 401-1 (libretro)
    XMB menu assets for RetroArch

Why not use “elements” instead?

Description:

The description of the package need to be changed to accommodate:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html

To refer to published works as “assets”, or “digital assets”, is even worse than calling them “content” — it presumes they have no value to society except commercial value.

community/warsow-data 2.1.2-1.hyperbola2
    Free online multiplayer competitive FPS based on the Qfusion engine (data files), without nonfree assets

Description:

The description of the package need to be changed to accommodate:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html

The expression “BSD-style license” leads to confusion because it lumps together licenses that have important differences. For instance, the original BSD license with the advertising clause is incompatible with the GNU General Public License, but the revised BSD license is compatible with the GPL.

To avoid confusion, it is best to name the specific license in question and avoid the vague term “BSD-style.”

community/libsmf 1.3-5
    A BSD-licensed C library for handling SMF ("*.mid") files.

extra/gfbgraph 0.2.3+10+gbc03c1f-1
    GLib/GObject wrapper for the Facebook Graph API

In my opinion this software is for exclusive use of proprietary network. This software shall be removed from Hyperbola.

Description:

In my opinion, this software shall be either removed, or features disabled to access either Google or Facebook, as those are proprietary networks.

Further, using those proprietary networks is steering users towards non-free software, directly, or indirectly, as many times Javascript need to be handled that is proprietary.

extra/kaccounts-integration 17.04.0-1 (kde-applications kdenetwork)
    Small system to administer web accounts for the sites and services across the KDE desktop, including: Google, Facebook, Owncloud, IMAP, Jabber and others

See:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

A free system distribution must not steer users towards obtaining any nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do so.

extra/kaccounts-providers 17.04.0-1 (kde-applications kdenetwork)
    Small system to administer web accounts for the sites and services across the KDE desktop, including: Google, Facebook, Owncloud, IMAP, Jabber and others

I do not see why would “Google” and “Facebook” be there on the first place. This software shall be either removed, or features to access proprietary networks disabled.

Another point is that often such access would required handling the proprietary javascript. I do not know if that is the case here.

Description:

extra/bogofilter 1.2.4-2.hyperbola2
    A fast Bayesian spam filtering tool, without noncommercial files

That shall be clarified better in description.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Commercial

Please don’t use “commercial” as a synonym for “nonfree.” That confuses two entirely different issues.

Description:

extra/grilo 0.3.3+3+g3104a34-1
    Framework that provides access to various sources of multimedia content

The description is vague.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

extra/libgpod 0.8.3-5
    A shared library to access the contents of an iPod

The description is vague.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

extra/qpdf 6.0.0-2
    QPDF: A Content-Preserving PDF Transformation System

The description is vague.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

extra/qt5-svg 5.8.0-1 (qt qt5) [installed]
    Classes for displaying the contents of SVG files

The description is vague.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

extra/webkit2gtk 2.16.1-3.hyperbola1 [installed]
    GTK+ Web content engine library, without geoclue2 support

The description is vague as it is using “content” in description. Why not say “elements” or something more descriptive.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

extra/webkitgtk 2.4.11-6.hyperbola1
    Legacy Web content engine for GTK+ 3, without geoclue2 support

The description is vague. There is not even need to use “content” here. Web engine should be very clear. “Content” alone does not make sense.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

community/drupal 8.3.2-1
    A PHP-based content management platform

The description is vague. Content is not HTML page alone. Then even text editor could be called “content management”.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

In most cases, that term really refers to a system for updating pages on a web site. For that, we recommend the term “web site revision system” (WRS).

Description:

extra/xorg-xev 1.2.2-1 (xorg-apps xorg)
    Print contents of X events

Description is vague because of the word “content”. Why not say “X events information”. At least description shall be changed which is very public. For man page I am not sure.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

community/avrdude 1:6.3-2
    Download/upload/manipulate the ROM and EEPROM contents of AVR microcontrollers

Description is vague because of the word “content”. The word itself is fine in English language, but here it is used out of the proper context. And it is not not necessary at all. When one knows what is the abbreviation of ROM, such as Read-Only Memory, then any mentioning of contents of ROM is needless. It is enough to say: “Download/upload/manipulate the ROM and EEPROM of AVR microcontrollers”

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

community/ext3grep 0.10.2-4
    A tool to investigate an ext3 file system for deleted content and possibly recover it

Description is vague because of the word “content”. Why not say instead “data”?

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

community/webfs 1.21-13
    Simple and instant http server for mostly static content.

Description is vague because of the word “content”. Why not simply say “files” instead and be more specific.

Even empty files without data inside can be served.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

community/iceweasel-no-resource-uri-leak 1.1.0-1 (iceweasel-addons)
    Deny resource:// access to Web content. Fill the hole to defend against fingerprinting.

Description is vague because of the word “content”. Does it deny to “content” or it denies to files, URLs or to what?

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

Description:

community/openstreetmap-map-icons-svn 31588-1 [installed]
    A set of public domain licensed map icons for general OSM use

It is questionable if it is “Licensed” or dedicated.

See the file:
/usr/share/licenses/openstreetmap-map-icons/svg-twotone/LICENSE.txt

it does not matter if the file is named “LICENSE”, it could be also named anyhow else.

There must be reason why the organization Creative Commons is not using the word “License” in that text, and that is why I propose to simply say in description:

    A set of public domain map icons for general OSM use

community/autoconf-archive 1:2017.03.21-1
    A collection of freely re-usable Autoconf macros

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#FreelyAvailable

Don’t use “freely available software” as a synonym for “free software.” The terms are not equivalent. Software is “freely available” if anyone can easily get a copy. “Free software” is defined in terms of the freedom of users that have a copy of it. These are answers to different questions.

community/python-biopython 1.69-1
    Freely available Python tools for computational molecular biology

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#FreelyAvailable

Don’t use “freely available software” as a synonym for “free software.” The terms are not equivalent. Software is “freely available” if anyone can easily get a copy. “Free software” is defined in terms of the freedom of users that have a copy of it. These are answers to different questions.

community/python2-biopython 1.69-1
    Freely available Python tools for computational molecular biology

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#FreelyAvailable

Don’t use “freely available software” as a synonym for “free software.” The terms are not equivalent. Software is “freely available” if anyone can easily get a copy. “Free software” is defined in terms of the freedom of users that have a copy of it. These are answers to different questions.

core/linux-atm 2.5.2-4
     Drivers and tools to support ATM networking under Linux.

See:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Linux

Let us not make it vague. If it refers to kernel, then let us say “Linux kernel”. If it refers to operating system, let us say so.

In general, packages referring to kernel as Linux which is correct, I am leaving alone and will not report it here. Only those referring to operating system name or when stated in vague manner.