Re: Tree-sitter maturity

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

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> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > Not sure whether this has been mentioned: there is a "treesit-auto"[1]
>   > addon on melpa that can detect missing treesitter grammars and handle
>   > their installation automatically.  It would be great if something
>   > similar can be integrated into core, and if possible, grammar version
>   > handling and compatibility with distribution supplied grammar would be
>   > good to have.
>
> If we add something like this to Emacs, there is an issue we need to
> take care about: to make carefully sure that it does not install
> any nonfree grammars.  I don't know how those grammars are released,
> ir by whom, or how much they care about free software.  We can't
> take for granted that they do.
>
> Perhaps we could check automatically that the grammar found is properly
> licenses, and disregard any grammars that are not free.
>
> By contrast, if grammars are going to be packaged and released for
> distros, and chosen for installation by users, then it is the user's
> responsibility, not Emacs's responsibility, to reject the nonfree ones
> (and the GNU/Linux distro might insist on that).

It might take a while for that to happen, which is why I still believe
it would be better if tree-sitter major modes would populate
`treesit-language-source-alist' on their own, and point to the specific
checkouts that the major mode developer tested their implementation
against.  That way users are assured that when using the command
`treesit-install-language-grammar', that their grammar is both stable
and free.