instead of gnus-cloud.el

instead of gnus-cloud.el

[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 term "cloud computing" clouds users minds; it discourages them
from asking crucial questions, such as "Whose computer is that, in
which country, and what exactly are they asking me to entrust to it?"
It fuzzes all the different uses of the network together.  So we urge
people to reject the term "cloud."  See
http://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.

Thus, I was perturbed to see that a file in Gnus grants legitimacy
to the term "cloud" by using it.  The name ought to be changed.

I was going to suggest another name based on what the file does.
But I can't figure out what it does.  The only explanation is one
line at the top of the file, and it doesn't say much.  That is
bad maintenance.

Would someone like to add comments sufficient to understand
what the code does?  And please show them to me.

-- 
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.

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Thus, I was perturbed to see that a file in Gnus grants legitimacy
> to the term "cloud" by using it.  The name ought to be changed.

The name is humorous -- a parody of the term "cloud computing".

> I was going to suggest another name based on what the file does.
> But I can't figure out what it does.  The only explanation is one
> line at the top of the file, and it doesn't say much.  That is
> bad maintenance.

It's a feature under development, and is not used by anybody, so
documentation of this non-existing feature would be premature.  Up until
very recently we weren't quite sure what it was going to look like, but
it's shaping up now.

It's a mechanism for storing data (in the first implementation, Gnus
data) on your local IMAP server, so that you can access your Emacs
environment from all the machines you use Emacs.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[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. ]]]

  > It's a feature under development, and is not used by anybody, so
  > documentation of this non-existing feature would be premature.

Writing for the manual later is ok, but it should have comments in the
file now, don't you think?

  > The name is humorous -- a parody of the term "cloud computing".

What is the joke?

-- 
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.

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[Stefan Monnier]

> It's a mechanism for storing data (in the first implementation, Gnus
> data) on your local IMAP server, so that you can access your Emacs
> environment from all the machines you use Emacs.

BTW, the text says "imap" but the code (and the name) doesn't look
specific to imap (other than a call to nnimap-request-articles).


        Stefan

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2016 01:10:55 -0400 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote: 

RS> The term "cloud computing" clouds users minds; it discourages them
RS> from asking crucial questions, such as "Whose computer is that, in
RS> which country, and what exactly are they asking me to entrust to it?"
RS> It fuzzes all the different uses of the network together.  So we urge
RS> people to reject the term "cloud."  See
RS> http://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.

RS> Thus, I was perturbed to see that a file in Gnus grants legitimacy
RS> to the term "cloud" by using it.  The name ought to be changed.

RS> I was going to suggest another name based on what the file does.
RS> But I can't figure out what it does.  The only explanation is one
RS> line at the top of the file, and it doesn't say much.  That is
RS> bad maintenance.

Like Lars, I think this is funny because it's entirely unlike the
"cloud" in "cloud computing." It lets the user store their files, Gnus,
and other settings on an IMAP server they can control.

If "cloud" is really unacceptable, this replaces gnus-sync.el so maybe
it could take that name. But I would rather explain the joke in the
commentary.

Ted

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> If "cloud" is really unacceptable, this replaces gnus-sync.el so maybe
> it could take that name. But I would rather explain the joke in the
> commentary.

It would be a nice place to put the required "the cloud is just someone
else's computer" saying into the Emacs manual.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:50:31 +0200 Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote: 

On Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:06:34 -0400 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote: 

>> If "cloud" is really unacceptable, this replaces gnus-sync.el so maybe
>> it could take that name. But I would rather explain the joke in the
>> commentary.

RS> That joke might be funny, if it were presented clearly enough that
RS> people could get it.

RS> But please don't put the joke in the file name.  Most people who see
RS> the file name won't know it is a joke.  With them, it will really encourage
RS> the harmful "cloud" meme.

OK, I'll let you and Lars and the maintainers figure it out. Let's do
the rename, if that's the decision, after the current gnus-cloud code is
reviewed and merged, or it will get confusing (because the feature
branch currently removes the old gnus-sync.el).

On Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:04:48 -0400 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote: 

RS> Writing for the manual later is ok, but it should have comments in the
RS> file now, don't you think?

I already documented many of the gnus-cloud.el functions in my feature
branch. I'll add more docs to the code and expand the manual after it's
merged, since it's still in progress.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:52:56 -0400 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote: 

SM> BTW, the text says "imap" but the code (and the name) doesn't look
SM> specific to imap (other than a call to nnimap-request-articles).

Yeah, indeed it may work with nnml right now, but we want to use IMAP
features in the future. For instance I think the native IMAP unique
article ID from https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501#section-2.3.1 will
be better than the current `gnus-cloud-sequence' defvar. And IMAP flags
may be good for separating full vs. incremental updates, which currently
are encoded in the article subject.

Ted

Re: instead of gnus-cloud.el

[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. ]]]

  > If "cloud" is really unacceptable, this replaces gnus-sync.el so maybe
  > it could take that name. But I would rather explain the joke in the
  > commentary.

That joke might be funny, if it were presented clearly enough that
people could get it.

But please don't put the joke in the file name.  Most people who see
the file name won't know it is a joke.  With them, it will really encourage
the harmful "cloud" meme.

The name of something generally has more PR effect than the substance.
If the effect of the name is bad, it is impossible for the substance
to cancel that out.  So always use a name that doesn't have a bad PR
effect.

The joke can be presented in another way.

-- 
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.