From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Richard M. Stallman" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is there any way to have a string literal that is read "raw" Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:34:53 -0400 Message-ID: References: <42CE8ADB.2000007@student.lu.se> <42CEFD45.2050107@student.lu.se> <42D00BF0.4050500@student.lu.se> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1121018098 17825 80.91.229.2 (10 Jul 2005 17:54:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 17:54:58 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jul 10 19:54:50 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Drg0o-0004vQ-P7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 19:54:43 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Drg2L-0006X0-GE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:56:17 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Drfzz-0005vM-Nf for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:53:52 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Drfzq-0005qr-PQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:53:43 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Drfzq-0005kl-Go for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:53:42 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DrfrY-00007Z-HQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:45:08 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1Drfhd-0006p1-0h; Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:34:53 -0400 Original-To: Lennart Borgman In-reply-to: <42D00BF0.4050500@student.lu.se> (message from Lennart Borgman on Sat, 09 Jul 2005 19:40:00 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:40729 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:40729 >What I've told you is that advantages only for Windows users are not >important advantages for the GNU Project. Our goal is to replace >Windows, not to enhance it, and we must not allow ourselves to be >distracted from this goal for the convenience of Windows users. Yes, I agree to that, but maybe that does not mean that "advantages only for Windows users" are unimportant and does not contribute to GNU? For example I have found myself spending a lot of time trying to overcome different problems I meet in Emacs as a Windows users. There might be many possible contributors on Windows that does the same. Would it not be an advantage for GNU if we could spend more of our power actually contributing to the overall project? This is true when the Windows users are making contributions to Emacs that make Emacs better as a part of the GNU system. In other words, contributions that really matter, contributions that are not Windows-only. This does not alter the point that Windows-only improvements are not important for the GNU Project. Correcting Windows-only bugs or misfeatures is welcome, just not as important as making Emacs better on the GNU system. Windows-only features are not acceptable. To gain many developers at the cost of forgetting our goal would be a grave error. There are plenty of things that I believe could benefit from studying Windows solutions. Do you not think that this could speed up the development? Is not this a viable strategy? If you mean, looking at Windows for ideas that we would apply in a system-independent way, and that could make Emacs better on all platforms, that is a useful thing to do. It is useful precisely because any features that result would not be Windows-only. However, in order to be desirable, these features would have to provide advantages on the GNU system, not just on Windows.