From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: How to make Emacs popular again. Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2020 10:07:06 +0300 Message-ID: <83v9ftf6n9.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87o8ls1vvq.fsf@posteo.net> <20200926145302.sjrwjrguf5ialc25@Ergus> <3201a9fe-de19-d553-0be1-d379f182fd47@yandex.ru> <84273aa2-24a9-7584-18b9-03a5ac783d62@yandex.ru> <835z7vjrg3.fsf@gnu.org> <83tuvegkmo.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="8452"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: philipk@posteo.net, eduardoochs@gmail.com, spacibba@aol.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, dgutov@yandex.ru, jamtlu@gmail.com To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Oct 02 09:08:46 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kOFBO-000292-Lk for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2020 09:08:46 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43302 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kOFBN-0007AB-Js for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2020 03:08:45 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:52152) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kOF9z-0006NG-AV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2020 03:07:19 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:41927) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kOF9x-0000aa-OL; Fri, 02 Oct 2020 03:07:17 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=3130 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1kOF9q-0001FX-Mr; Fri, 02 Oct 2020 03:07:11 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Richard Stallman on Thu, 01 Oct 2020 23:52:45 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:256929 Archived-At: > From: Richard Stallman > Cc: philipk@posteo.net, eduardoochs@gmail.com, spacibba@aol.com, > emacs-devel@gnu.org, dgutov@yandex.ru, jamtlu@gmail.com > Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2020 23:52:45 -0400 > > [[[ 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. ]]] > > > It's not like the server calculates something that could > > be subverted by a server we don't control. What harm could be done by > > looking up a word? > > The server could report that you did so. That is something that should be known about a server, isn't it? The default dict.org server runs dictd, the server built from the dict-1.12 package. dict is a GPLed package and its source can be scrutinized to see if anything like that is there. The information about the server is reachable from the dict.org home page, www.dict.org. > And how is it different from the command we have > > that queries an Internet search engine (M-s M-w)? > > One difference is that you can, and should, have a local dictionary > and you can't have a local search engine. DICT servers usually use more than one dictionary. The dict.org one uses 12 of them (all free or PD, AFAIU), and that's even before you count the dictionaries that translate between 2 languages. It would be unusual for a seasoned Emacs user to have all of them installed locally. > Another difference is that you are likely to want to check definitions > very often, and searching less often. I think it's the other way around. I very rarely need to search for a single word, and when I do, I can use "M-s M-w" to do that, because search engines consult these dictionaries as well.