From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: New maintainer Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:37:45 -0400 Message-ID: References: <560CCEBA.9080607@online.de> <874miapdhs.fsf@openmailbox.org> <8737xuuw2y.fsf@rabkins.net> <87lhbmkrle.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1443836289 7168 80.91.229.3 (3 Oct 2015 01:38:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2015 01:38:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: David Kastrup Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 03 03:38:01 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZiBlv-0001Rx-Bu for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Oct 2015 03:37:59 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36446 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZiBlu-0008AU-NS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:37:58 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:35732) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZiBli-0008AA-Tt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:37:48 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZiBlh-0004Jb-St for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:37:46 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:33225) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZiBlh-0004JV-PP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:37:45 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1ZiBlh-0000wz-2n; Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:37:45 -0400 In-reply-to: <87lhbmkrle.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> (message from David Kastrup on Fri, 02 Oct 2015 03:05:17 +0200) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:190759 Archived-At: [[[ 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. ]]] > My OS X story for Emacs is mostly this: Give Mitsuharu Yamamoto > whatever help he needs. His "Mac port" variant of Emacs is all I > could ask for in terms of OS X support right now. I'd like to see > it modernized under Cocoa, if at all possible, or promoted to a > build flavor in the master branch. That would go against the goals of the GNU Project, both practically and in principle. It would be a very strong commitment to a system that exemplifies the injustice we aim to get rid of. It would be utterly backwards. > I'm not talking about upheaval here, just equal footing, It would be wrong and harmful to give MacOS an "equal footing". Our goal is to replace nonfree systems (and nonfree software in general), not to enhance them. We measure improvement of GNU Emacs in terms of what it can do as part of the GNU system. What happens on MacOS or Windows does not count. See the section "Platforms to Support", in Information for Maintainers of GNU Software. We do include support for MacOS and Windows, to the extent people develop such support and it isn't a problem to include; but we reject any obligation to support them. Making that an obligation would legitimize those systems -- and go against our goal, which is to beat them -- and divert effort to something that doesn't count. If the Emacs maintainers rejected features that work only on GNU-like systems, saying "You must add support for Windows and MacOS before we can install this," that would pressure our contributors to use proprietary systems (it is unethical even to suggest people use them!). That requirement would hold back contribution from developers that don't use them. It would thus impede the improvement of GNU Emacs (which means, making it function better in GNU). Thus, it is unacceptable to require Windows or MacOS support before installing contributions. A contribution only HAS to work on GNU (but it should be conditionalized so it does not break Emacs on the other platforms it doesn't support), but we should try to keep it working on *BSD since that is usually easy. As for Windows and MacOS support, we can integrate that if and when someone provides it. There is nothing wrong with an Emacs maintainer's writing code to support for Windows or MacOS. However, if the maintainers have limited time for Emacs, spending much time supporting secondary platforms could leave the Emacs maintainers' main job starved for time. That would be a practical problem, if it happens. Perhaps it won't happen. -- 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.