app-editors/wxhexeditor prints weird message to stdout, bug?

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

app-editors/wxhexeditor prints the following message to the terminal when run on this core file from Chromium crashing:

Hu · Administrator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 23326

Do you mean a bug report to Gentoo or a bug report to upstream? Why would this be a bug report? You disagree with upstream's choice, but this is not something I would expect Gentoo to patch out.

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

I simply don't think that religion has a place in free software, unless religion is supposed to be a central feature of said software. In other words, unless declaring that God is gracious and merciful somehow makes wxHexEditor better at its job, I don't think that it should be making that declaration. Nothing against religion (as a religious man myself), but I really don't think it belongs here, especially since religion causes conflict and free software needs unity.

An example of a project I think should contain references to God, religion etc is the Sefaria project. It is a collection of Jewish texts, with searching, a web app/site, mobile apps, APIs for third-party use, and more, and unless I'm mistaken, the entire thing is GPL licensed. This makes sense, since I won't be using Sefaria for anything other than looking at religious texts.

So perhaps you can understand my confusion when I get lectured about someone else's God by a file editor of all things, and in Turkish, no less; it just seems a bit off-topic, if you catch my drift

sMueggli · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2022 Posts: 579

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 12:50 pm Post subject:

leyvi,

It looks like a one line patch.
It will be faster to produce the patch than file the bug.

The patch goes into /etc/portage/patches/ so that it applied every time the package is built.

Free software (FOSS if you like) should be inclusive - that is regardless of religion or other things.

A long time ago I recall producing some avionic equipment for a Muslim country.
One of the requirements was that it had to display a message like the above, when it was starting up.
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leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 1:15 pm Post subject:

leyvi,

I don't know where the requirement came from.
It was in the requirement specification, so the customer paid for it and got it.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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those that have never had a hard drive fail.

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 1:37 pm Post subject:

leyvi,

The line you want to drop is at

sam_ · Developer Joined: 14 Aug 2020 Posts: 2271

sam_ · Developer Joined: 14 Aug 2020 Posts: 2271

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

Hey sam_.
While the example you provided isn't quite the same situation (being related to language, not religion) I would say that the solution is to just not use any language besides English in code, as it is considered bad practice. Any comments, symbols etc written in Hebrew should have been commented out, and left there as a testament to the developer's hard work. Then they should have been replaced with more accessible options.

I actually asked about it just now.
Many middle-eastern religions write something like this at the top of most documents, signs, billboards, etc.
Muslims write "In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.", and Jews write "With the help of heaven.", and there are others, too.
I've just never seen it in software before.

With this added information, I've changed my opinion:
Either this kind of message should be off by default at build time;
Or it should be based on locale/user-preference/setting.
So, maybe for someone with an Israeli locale, this message should be set to בס"ד, while for a Turk, it should be Rahman ve Rahim olan Allah'ın adıyla, etc depending on where you live.
I'm sure many different cultures and religions have their own versions.
But I think it's wrong to force someone to observe someone else's customs.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 2:28 pm Post subject:

leyvi,

It's left as an exercise for the reader to make a new patch :)
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

sam_ · Developer Joined: 14 Aug 2020 Posts: 2271

sMueggli · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2022 Posts: 579

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

Dear sMueggli, in the time you spent writing your refutation of my opinion, the conversation has moved on. I urge you to catch up.

Hu · Administrator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 23326

There are newer posts, but I don't see anyone who directly responded to your point in the way that sMueggli did. Thus, that post is at least not a duplicate, and I thought it was an interesting take on software freedom. I see nothing wrong with that post, particularly since sMueggli was responding to your response to his earlier response, so we cannot even say that he interjected himself into an unrelated and finished conversation. As I read the timestamps, sMueggli's response comes only a little over 4 hours after the post it answers, which is relatively rapid for an asynchronous web forum.

GDH-gentoo · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 4:56 pm Post subject:

Oh my God... pun intended

The software's author doesn't seem very active these days; you might try creating an issue in upstream's repository with a convincing rationale, but I expect it to sit there forever without progress, or to start an unproductive flame war.

Using /etc/portage/patches looks like the best option if that message annoys you; the location of the code that prints it has already been identified for you.
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pietinger · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 5:11 pm Post subject:

I find the question - should or may there be a religious statement in a program - very interesting.

I have briefly modified it (specifically) to: This program was created in the best country in the world ... in my beloved *!*-land.

As a programmer, am I allowed to display this in the program I have created?

I would answer this question in the affirmative.

Is this output pleasing to other people in other countries?

I would say no. Why is it not pleasing? Because by implication it means that all other countries are shit ... Well, at least worse.

I am averse to all people who think that THEIR opinion is the only right and true one. I find that pretentious, arrogant and presumptuous.

What could I do about it?

If it's closed software, I would strongly consider buying something like that ... I'd rather buy a competitor's product without this nonsense.

But if it is OpenSource, I would patch out the nonsense immediately and make a fork of it. Then I would offer this fork to the world ... with the subtle hint: This is the original XYZ program but without the arrogant edition of the original programmer ... the world can then decide what it prefers. And yes, if all people from the country *!* prefer the original, then that's their business, which I'm not interested in. But I don't want to have to read that statement. (And no, an issue that depends on which country I live in doesn't make it any better).
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leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

I am glad to see that my inquiry has sparked such an interesting debate;
I am even more glad to see that everyone here is being mature about said debate, as this is not commonplace on the internet these days

I would first and foremost like to apologize in advance of anything I say: today is a national holiday where I live, and as such, I am quite intoxicated :wink:

Please excuse me for any lack of clarity with my writings.

While drinking with friends, the following occurred to me:
If we assume, for the sake of debate, that messages like בס"ד and "Rahman ve Rahim olan Allah'ın adıyla." are to be considered something that should be locale-specific, then a few new questions have now arisen, namely:

Shouldn't this be implemented system-wide? That is, should (in my case) setting my locale to `he_IL` set a string somewhere to בס"ד, which can be printed by every application that wishes to thank God in some way or form? (and so on and so forth for every region/language combination)
What if the user wants a different message printed? Example: a Muslim Israeli. I would assume that they might not want בס"ד printed everywhere. So maybe some sort of environment variable could provide an override for the default value of the aforementioned string, so that it can be customized by the user, according to their religious and cultural beliefs?

I don't actually know how locales work under the hood, so maybe someone can provide an article? Anyway, it's interesting to think about.

Also:

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 5:55 pm Post subject:

leyvi,

How would you pander to atheists and agnostics?

Atheists may want to suppress religious messages completely
Agnostics may tolerate a few .

Locales don't cover them.
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

leyvi · Guru Joined: 08 Sep 2023 Posts: 308

Banana · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2025 9:22 am Post subject:

It is fun to think about, but there is no absolute answer to that.

The world is not black and white, it is coloful and so are the opinions of each and everyone.

One "answer" to this rainbow could be: Be respectful to each other
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