Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > Dare I say there is a freedom issue here?

Now you're really stretching things.

With proprietary software, the developers' decisions about what
features to implement, or not implement, are restrictions on the
users.  The point of free software is that our decisions -- whatever
we may decide -- are not restrictions.

What I see is that you do are trying to pressure me in a certain
direction and you're willing to stretch things to do it.

In the messages arguing for the full AST I have often seen strained
arguments and gaps.  This is not the way to convince me.  Rather, it
stimulates resistance.  It makes me skeptical about everything those
people say.  Where I do not see a gap or exaggeration, that doesn't
mean there isn't one.

Changing the subject -- making arguments about refactoring while I am
trying to understand about completion -- doesn't impress me favorably.
It interferes with my effort to understand the issue.

Here's how all this appears to me.  I am considering choosing a course
that seems dangerous, and someone asserts that it is obligatory, a
forced move.  He presents arguments I cannot follow, about a feature I
have never seen, which he claims is very important but I don't know
that.  The arguments cite facts about whose veracity I have no
independent knowledge.

I cannot evaluate those arguments.  Under the circumstances, I can
either follow his judgment on faith, or ignore it.

I might follow his judgment, if I have the fullest confidence in him
at all levels.  I would have to be sure he has evaluated the whole
issue from all sides.  I would have to confident that he would have
looked hard for some way to avoid the dangerous course; that if there
is a way, he would have found it and recommended it.

I don't have that sort of confidence in people who cut corners to
lobby for the dangerous course.  I suspect you have not tried hard
enough to find a way to avoid it.

What I intend to do is investigate these issues thoroughly _one by
one_ to see what options exist for each, and what is good or bad about
them.  I will think about refactoring when I understand it well enough
to be able to judge arguments myself.  First I will learn about it
from people who are not trying to pressure me about it.

You can help me do this, when I get to it, by giving me factual
answers to the questions I will ask.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.