bug#26179: Remove antinews

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Glenn Morris]

Package: emacs
Version: 25.2
Severity: wishlist

Antinews is a cute idea, but IMO once you've appreciated the joke,
that's it and you never think about it again.

Since there aren't enough people to maintain the non-comedy aspects of
Emacs documentation, I would like to see antinews removed, so that we
can spend the (admittedly tiny) time saving on other areas.

As it stands I view it as yet another item on the release checklist,
which is already so long that more important things (IMO) get dropped.

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
> Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2017 19:13:53 -0400
> 
> Antinews is a cute idea, but IMO once you've appreciated the joke,
> that's it and you never think about it again.
> 
> Since there aren't enough people to maintain the non-comedy aspects of
> Emacs documentation, I would like to see antinews removed, so that we
> can spend the (admittedly tiny) time saving on other areas.

To keep this in proper perspective, I'd like to remind that Antinews
is written only for major releases.

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

The antinews serves a serious purpose: it explains to those using
an older Emacs version with a newer version of the manual how their
version will differ from the manual.

Doing it in a comedic way is more fun and doesn't make it more work.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "GM" == Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:

GM> Since there aren't enough people to maintain the non-comedy aspects of
GM> Emacs documentation, I would like to see antinews removed, so that we can
GM> spend the (admittedly tiny) time saving on other areas.

Taking away one bit of work, in the context of an open source project, does
not mean people spend their energy in other, more productive places -- as much
as we'd like there to be a Law of Conservation of Volunteer Effort.

As long as someone is willing to maintain antinews, it will stick around. It
seems that enough people find it useful, that someone (Eli, I presume) has
been willing to keep it going. The humor just makes a lonely job more fun.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
>> Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2017 19:13:53 -0400
>> 
>> Antinews is a cute idea, but IMO once you've appreciated the joke,
>> that's it and you never think about it again.
>> 
>> Since there aren't enough people to maintain the non-comedy aspects of
>> Emacs documentation, I would like to see antinews removed, so that we
>> can spend the (admittedly tiny) time saving on other areas.
>
> To keep this in proper perspective, I'd like to remind that Antinews
> is written only for major releases.

It seems like there was no enthusiasm for this proposal at the time;
Eli, Richard and John seemed to disagree with it.

I suppose that means this is a wontfix?

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>,  26179@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 21:24:20 +0100
> 
> > To keep this in proper perspective, I'd like to remind that Antinews
> > is written only for major releases.
> 
> It seems like there was no enthusiasm for this proposal at the time;
> Eli, Richard and John seemed to disagree with it.
> 
> I suppose that means this is a wontfix?

For now, yes.  I do hope to see more people making that small effort
when we are about to release a major Emacs version, though.

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

The serious purpose of the Antinews section is to help users
understand Emacs version N from a manual for Emacs N+1.  Suppose you
are starting to use version N, which happens to come with your
GNU/Linux distro, and you buy latest the Emacs manual, and it happens
to be the version for Emacs N+1.  The Antinews will show you what is
different about version N.

If we are going to document this, it takes no more work to do it in a
funny way.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > The serious purpose of the Antinews section is to help users
  > understand Emacs version N from a manual for Emacs N+1.

For further explanation:

That is why Antinews does not give the details of features that were
added in version N+1.  It says only the feature is not in version N,
because that is all you need to know to use version N.  And that is
only for features worth mentioning.

Therefore, the Antinews section is usually not very long.

The only time Antinews has much detail is when version N
required doing things differently, in a way that the version N+1
manual does not explain.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

bug#26179: Remove antinews

[Stefan Kangas]

tags 26179 + wontfix
close 26179
thanks

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
>> Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>,  26179@debbugs.gnu.org
>> Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 21:24:20 +0100
>> 
>> > To keep this in proper perspective, I'd like to remind that Antinews
>> > is written only for major releases.
>> 
>> It seems like there was no enthusiasm for this proposal at the time;
>> Eli, Richard and John seemed to disagree with it.
>> 
>> I suppose that means this is a wontfix?
>
> For now, yes.  I do hope to see more people making that small effort
> when we are about to release a major Emacs version, though.

No further comments in three weeks; closed as wontfix.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas