Let me start by saying that fortunes-it-off has existed since 2003 and
there have been 0 complaints from offended people in these 22 years.
It's not pulled as a dependency by anything and even if installed, the
fortune package won't display that content unless the "-o" switch is
passed.
I think it's fair to assume that nobody has ever seen offensive
content from that package by mistake.
<...>
In 2023 I became maintainer of the package, set up a new upstream
project (since the original website was gone) and I have spent a lot
of hours making it more current.
I did that by removing tens of sexist, homophobic and racist jokes
that were not in the offensive section, and had been there at least
since 2004.
The ones that were just offensive but not funny I removed, those that
had some humoristic value I kept in the offensive section. I did
remove plenty of stuff from the offensive section.
Now, in 2025, after 2 years of me working on this package, and while
in freeze, the community team wants to remove the offensive section of
the fortunes.
When I asked for help to review actually offensive content, both in
the regular and in the offensive section, I got no reply other than a
vaguely threatening email from the release team.
I do not appreciate wasting my time, I do not appreciate having to
write this email and I do not appreciate the collective time wasted on
this.