dx-packages team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

** Description changed:

  unity 3.6.6-0ubuntu1, Ubuntu Natty
  unity 3.6.8-0ubuntu3, Ubuntu Natty
  unity-2d 5.8.0-0ubuntu1, Ubuntu Pangolin
+ unity 7.2.2+14.04.20140714-0ubuntu1, Ubuntu 14.04
  
  Example 1:
  0. Be a 14-year-old girl, or a schoolteacher preparing to show a film to your class, or a businessperson preparing to give a presentation.
  1. Click the Applications button.
  2. Type "movie" to launch Movie Player.
  What happens: Seven applications appear, one of which is called "PornView".
  
  Example 2:
  0. Be a Dell representative or customer.
  1. Click the Applications button.
  2. Type "Dell" to find the Dell Recovery tool.
  What happens: Five applications appear, including "Dopewars", a drug-dealing game.
  
  (More examples in
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/883800/comments/15>.)
  
  This problem cannot reasonably be solved merely by renaming or
  blacklisting one or two particular applications. These are just two
  examples, and if the Dash shows any applications that aren't installed,
  there is no bright line between those that should appear for everyone
  and those that should appear for no-one.
  
  We can't realistically expect the entire Ubuntu software library to be
  offense-free: as more independent applications are published, some
  (especially games) will be targeted at mature audiences and/or be non-
  worksafe, and that's fine. (We can introduce a maturity rating system
  inside Ubuntu Software Center for those.) But people should be able to
  expect that the launcher in Ubuntu's shell, of all things, *will* be
  offense-free.
  
  Possible solutions:
  
  * Simplest would be to restrict application search results only to those
  applications that are actually installed. As Mark Shuttleworth said in
  <https://lists.launchpad.net/unity-design/msg08030.html>: "To launch
  what you know you have installed, use the Dash. To explore what may be
  installed, or may be available, use the Software Centre. Now, neither
  piece may yet be ideal, but we should improve the design of those pieces
  for their specific purposes, not try to make everything do everything."
  
  * Introduce a maturity ratings system
  <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-software-
  maturity-ratings>, apply it to every package in the Ubuntu archive that
  needs it, then set a reasonable default for Dash searches (analogous to
  Google's "SafeSearch Moderate"). This might involve adding a setting for
  how much filtering the Dash should do.
  
  * Ad-hoc and unconfigurable blacklisting (as proposed in duplicate bug
  883800). This might result in ongoing disagreements about whether
  particular applications should be blacklisted.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/739469

Title:
  Dash search unavoidably returns offensive results

Status in Unity:
  Fix Released
Status in Unity Foundations:
  Fix Released
Status in Unity Applications Lens:
  Confirmed
Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “unity-place-applications” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  unity 3.6.6-0ubuntu1, Ubuntu Natty
  unity 3.6.8-0ubuntu3, Ubuntu Natty
  unity-2d 5.8.0-0ubuntu1, Ubuntu Pangolin
  unity 7.2.2+14.04.20140714-0ubuntu1, Ubuntu 14.04

  Example 1:
  0. Be a 14-year-old girl, or a schoolteacher preparing to show a film to your class, or a businessperson preparing to give a presentation.
  1. Click the Applications button.
  2. Type "movie" to launch Movie Player.
  What happens: Seven applications appear, one of which is called "PornView".

  Example 2:
  0. Be a Dell representative or customer.
  1. Click the Applications button.
  2. Type "Dell" to find the Dell Recovery tool.
  What happens: Five applications appear, including "Dopewars", a drug-dealing game.

  (More examples in
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/883800/comments/15>.)

  This problem cannot reasonably be solved merely by renaming or
  blacklisting one or two particular applications. These are just two
  examples, and if the Dash shows any applications that aren't
  installed, there is no bright line between those that should appear
  for everyone and those that should appear for no-one.

  We can't realistically expect the entire Ubuntu software library to be
  offense-free: as more independent applications are published, some
  (especially games) will be targeted at mature audiences and/or be non-
  worksafe, and that's fine. (We can introduce a maturity rating system
  inside Ubuntu Software Center for those.) But people should be able to
  expect that the launcher in Ubuntu's shell, of all things, *will* be
  offense-free.

  Possible solutions:

  * Simplest would be to restrict application search results only to
  those applications that are actually installed. As Mark Shuttleworth
  said in <https://lists.launchpad.net/unity-design/msg08030.html>: "To
  launch what you know you have installed, use the Dash. To explore what
  may be installed, or may be available, use the Software Centre. Now,
  neither piece may yet be ideal, but we should improve the design of
  those pieces for their specific purposes, not try to make everything
  do everything."

  * Introduce a maturity ratings system
  <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-software-
  maturity-ratings>, apply it to every package in the Ubuntu archive
  that needs it, then set a reasonable default for Dash searches
  (analogous to Google's "SafeSearch Moderate"). This might involve
  adding a setting for how much filtering the Dash should do.

  * Ad-hoc and unconfigurable blacklisting (as proposed in duplicate bug
  883800). This might result in ongoing disagreements about whether
  particular applications should be blacklisted.

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