Re: Dedication

[Clint Adams <clint@zsh.org>]

> Many books include a dedication at their start and I don't see why
> software is any less a part "meatspace" than a book. Sport is as
> unrelated to politics yet there are events cancelled and Ferraris
> driving around yesterday in plain red and a black nose. I'd only see it
> as involvement if the wording was controversial.

*sigh*

I took some small comfort until recently that zsh-workers was
the only mailing list I'm on where things of this nature
weren't discussed as if it were on-topic.

Many of my waking moments are wasted by the aftermath of
whatever one would call the events getting so much attention.
I can avoid the jingoistic hate speech by turning off the
TV or walking away, depending on the source.  I can delete
the long threads on software project mailing lists calling for
condemnation, letters of sympathy, webpage blackening,
and other such gestures, and the flame wars over the
propriety of such actions.  I can wear a mask to make my
lungs burn a little less when I have to breathe the fumes
from the WTC fires and Con Ed generators.  I'm digressing.

I'd question the propriety of such a dedication in a book,
whether "meatspace" or in "digital" form.  I might view it
as presumptuous.  I question both the propriety and the
value of the proposed dedication of a Z-Shell release.  I
vaguely recall Zefram urging some sort of action regarding
one of many attacks on personal freedom, and it being
regarded as none of our business.  How are plane hijackings
our business?

No hard feelings if the dedication is made.