Re: What would an "An Official" GNU Emacs Book look like?

[chad <yandros@gmail.com>]

> On 21 May 2015, at 04:33, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
>> and the demand for freedom has forced
>> even Apple to back down from its original draconian restrictions on
>> programming languages for iOS.  (Just a small win, but it's real.)
> 
> It may be an advance, but (according to what I've been told)
> you can't write and run a program in any fashion on an iThing
> unless you pay for a developer's license.

This is not currently correct, but the practical hurdles are enough
to dissuade many end-users.

It is true that its harder to install software from other people
than it is to go through the Apple gatekeeper (which requires the
license), unless the user has rooted the device (and this is one
of the most common reasons for doing so).

As a practical matter, I think the majority of people who are
interested in doing this sort of work have self-selected themselves
away from iThings to the (vastly more widespread) Android devices.
Those are not entirely free either, but it is comparatively easy
to write, run, and distribute software for such without buying a
license or getting locked into bad licenses (assuming that youre
ok with Java and the Apache Software License, that is).

I hope that helps,
~Chad