Re: Stealing a default face from a non-ELPA package

["João Távora" <joaotavora@gmail.com>]

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Hello Tim,

The goal here, I think, was not to decide if the change had merit or not.
As far as I understand there are demonstrable functional problems with the
faces default settings as chosen by Brian himself.

I presume Brian is just trying to fix those problems, a legitimate goal
that cannot be left to "theme authors". There is such a thing as the
"default theme" and we are all its authors.

Brian is just asking if it is "legal" to take inspiration for decorative
face settings from a different project outside GNU ELPA. I believe it is
quite legal, but I'm not a specialist so suggested he ask here.

João

On Sat, Mar 5, 2022, 08:14 Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Brian Leung <leungbk@posteo.net> writes:
>
> > I sent this question to the mailing list this morning but I can't see it
> on the
> > list archives, so I'm trying to send it again:
> >
> > In
> >
> https://github.com/joaotavora/eglot/discussions/858#discussioncomment-2288255
> ,
> > a user noticed that lsp-mode used as a face default a much nicer setting
> > than what currently exists in eglot. Given that lsp-mode is not part of
> > ELPA, can we steal its setting and use it in eglot?
>
> "much nicer" is a very subjective metric. What you think is much nicer I
> might think is much uglier. Tweaking face properties is really best left
> to either individuals or theme authors.
>
> From what I can tell in that thread, all that is being proposed is to
> change the foreground colour of an eglot face to use the same value as a
> lsp-mode face. If that is the case, I don't see any copyright violation
> here. All that is being done is changing the value of a face. As the
> code used to define faces is part of core Emacs, your not talking about
> code change, only default value change.
>
> I do think it is a pointless change. While the proposed new foreground
> colour might look better to one individual using specific hardware on a
> specific platform with a specific theme, it could look much worse to
> another user on a different platform, with different hardware and a
> different theme who will then log an issue requesting that the face be
> changed to something they think is a better default setting.
>
> Purpose of default face settings should be to set a face which is usable
> for the widest selection of users, regardless of hardware, platform or
> type of environment (GUI/Terminal/Console). Fiddling with face
> aesthetics is best left to theme authors.
>

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