The story is rather short:

  • some company made an iGasm, a sex toy that works with audio devices. Apple's lawyers were not happy about iGasm's posters, which are pretty much identical with their own ads.
  • Stephan blogged about it. His posts automatically appear on Planet Ubuntu.
  • Elkbuntu (Melissa Draper) had a brief chat with Stephen (who later on posted log). Elkbuntu said she thinks it's not appropriate for a family-friendly site (Planet) and that she's writing an email to Community Council. Hermann denended his post claiming that in free society this kind of stuff is suitable for children.
  • Hermann wrote a blog post, in which he announced that he quits Ubuntu.

It's definitely not a cool thing to see a developer leave. But honestly, after reading the "I quit" post alone I'm a bit disgusted. Not because of iGasm post. I've read it when it was first published and didn't find it improper (or interesting if that matters...). The key issue here is that by posting stuff on his blog, he made it available through Ubuntu Planet. And [whoever's responsible for the Planet] certainly doesn't have to be fine with _anything_ _anybody_ wishes to publish. It's not black and white - everyone places a border somewhere. It's those shades of grey where most disputes occur. Melissa found it to be inapropriate and wanted to do something about it. Stephan's response was: (not his exact words): "it's perfectly fine, you're prudent and uneducated, if you don't agree with me, I'll burn all bridges". This kind of reaction is in fact a way of taking away someone else's freedom. Hermann clearly expressed your view that she doesn't have a right to have a different opinion than he does.

BTW... wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to "tell" the Planet not to include particular post? For example bloggers could use a <!--noplanet--> tag anywhere within their post...