Political Rhetoric has no place in tooling

[ghost]

No matter what your political feelings are, they should not be expressed in tool output.

[rtyley]

Why?

[vandadnptv4]

I actually have to agree with this. I have never voted for any president, in any of the 4 countries I've lived in but I found that statement to be so out of place I was taken aback by it.

Please leave politics out of this and let us enjoy this great tool for what it is: a tool to ease the lives of developers around the world, and not as a platform to spew out political statements which have neither anything to do with the tool nor with any of its usages or users.

[ghost]

vandadnptv4, much more eloquently stated. Thank you. I respect everybody's right to an opinion on whatever part of the world stage is being watched. You can express it in whatever venue that want to (legal or not). However, I would really hate to see such good work dismissed, banned, or otherwise restricted because of political rhetoric being printed on every execution.

For use in my company, we will need to build the tool from source and remove the statements. If my management team saw those comments in a log file, my job might be at risk. It would just be better for all if that weren't in the source.

[hayesall]

The message was merged in with pull request #198 (rtyley's statement is available here).

Multiple issues have been submitted on this topic (Issue #223 #222 #206 #205), each of these are closed now.

[javabrett]

I respect everybody's right to an opinion on whatever part of the world stage is being watched. You can express it in whatever venue that want to

For use in my company, we will need to build the tool from source and remove the statements.

This is sufficient to close this issue - complete solution. License is permissive. Use the source-code within the license and do as you please.

[banderson]

I'm way more surprised at the outrage in these github issues than I was to see the message in my console. @rtyley created an outstanding tool and gave it to the community to make our lives easier. I'm fed up with the daily political commentary as much as anyone, but he can express his views here if that's what he thinks is right.

This is sufficient to close this issue - complete solution. License is permissive. Use the source-code within the license and do as you please.

As @javabrett indicated above, this is open source where we can build what we think is right, and @rtyley is doing just that 👏

[vandadnptv4]

This is sufficient to close this issue - complete solution. License is permissive. Use the source-code within the license and do as you please.

While true, it is very unprofessional but perhaps "@rtyley is doing just that"!

Have a nice day

[vitgorbunov]

It's kind of extreme to make fork just to remove a message. You can use simple script wrapper instead

#!/bin/bash
java -jar bfg.jar $* | grep -v 'You can\|make people\|give up'

[n4ru]

Echoing this sentiment. Garbage.

[nyanpasu64]

Missing a few head commits, but same release without message: https://github.com/Tatsh/bfg-repo-cleaner/releases

[shellscape]

This issue exactly. I think it's great that the author has a cause and believes firmly, willing to take action on their beliefs and try to make a difference in following them. But forcing that upon anyone in this context is just plain wrong. We're inundated by loud political rhetoric at every turn these days, and I'm woeful and disappointed that someone has taken the opportunity to inject it - without consent or notice - into a download. It is for these same reasons that advertisements are not considered good form for CLI tools. Make a statement in a medium that isn't an ambush. At best you're only speaking to those who already agree with you. If one didn't already agree with you, I would be loathe to see that message, and would leave a sour taste. At worst you're further alienating and pushing away those who don't agree, and contributing to the extreme polarization we're facing today. It serves no good, real purpose. It doesn't raise awareness of the intended issue.

Poor choice all around.

[tflo]

Honestly guys, if I didn’t agree with the author’s statement I would seriously consider to not use the software.

It is true that it is not very common to include a political statement with software, and that means that to the author of bfg his statement really is important. You should respect that.

[shellscape]

@tflo I'd respect it if it wasn't an ambushed message. If this were a religious message or advertising you can safely bet our peers would be up in arms. There's also something to be said for respect for one's users in the open source community. The author could have shown some more tact in his delivery, could warn people ahead of time before downloading that it contains political messages, or could have simply offered a flag to view the message instead of forcing it on users every run.

Your comment about not using it is moot. We've already moved on, but that doesn't negate the matter that what the author chose to do was in poor form.

[rtyley]

I hope these explanations help you understand my position on including the message in the output of the BFG: https://github.com/rtyley/bfg-repo-cleaner/pull/198#issuecomment-286301000 & https://github.com/rtyley/bfg-repo-cleaner/issues/205#issuecomment-285049770