Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ 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. ]]]
>
>   > > That appears to have been in 2005, before GPL v3 was published.
>   > > GPL v3 is what Apple hates, because of its patent protection.
>
>   > But the current attempts to strike against LLVM by making it
>   > harder to interoperate with Emacs and GCC are _irrelevant_ with
>   > regard to patent protection: the patent protection applies even
>   > for mere aggregation.
>
> You've taken pieces from two different puzzles and observed that they
> don't fit together.  It's true, but no surprise.

An effective defense should countermand the damage from an attack.  So
if the defense does not fit the attack, it may not be worth its price.

>   > We are not changing Apple's policies.
>
> That is true.  I don't see any way we can change Apple's policies.
>
>   >   What we are now doing is lashing
>   > out against LLVM's users.
>
> What I said is that this calls for a thoughtful decision,
> not a reflexive snap decision.

    It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and
    by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should
    cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise
    opposite is the case. Civilisation advances by extending the number
    of important operations which we can perform without thinking about
    them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle:
    they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and
    must only be made at decisive moments.

    An Introduction to Mathematics, 1911

What I am trying to say here is that we need to come to a state where a
project manager can in the overwhelming majority of cases reliably make
a reflexive snap decision in concordance with GNU's goals and
agreed-upon rules.  Nobody wants to be considered unfit to do the job he
is tasked to do.

> You're putting an emotional charge on it that has nothing to do with
> me.  It comes from you.

Well, I'm not engaged in free software because of the financial bottom
line.  So I may indeed be guilty of being emotionally invested.

-- 
David Kastrup