From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A response to RMS (was Loading a package applies automatically to future sessions?) Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:36:50 -0500 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1517863159 3562 195.159.176.226 (5 Feb 2018 20:39:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2018 20:39:19 +0000 (UTC) Cc: stephen.berman@gmx.net, monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: George Plymale II Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Feb 05 21:39:14 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1einXd-0008SC-87 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 21:39:05 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33712 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1einZc-0002qE-V2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:41:09 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39163) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1einVb-0008SG-7V for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:37:00 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1einVa-0000DS-DB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:36:59 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:55647) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1einVT-0008SC-Dk; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:36:51 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1einVS-0000i3-Da; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:36:50 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from George Plymale II on Mon, 05 Feb 2018 04:17:52 -0500) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:222564 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. ]]] > Ask yourself, though: > what stops a user from modifying the bits that run on their computer? > Not the law. It is knowledge. Knowledge of how a computer works and how > well its machine code can be understood. With all due respect, you're mistaken about the reasons for this. Common obstacles include the user has no access to the source code. the system or the hardware is designed to refuse to run modified versions. But the most common reason is, the user is not a programmer, and can't ask the development community for help because the proprietary nature of a program prevents the existence of one. Changing a large program at the machine code level, without the comments that help programmes understand the code, is too hard to be feasible -- except for quite small changes, which are merely a great pain in the neck. > Indeed, the GNU project's > efforts and funds would be far better spent creating tools that would > allow users to universally understand machine code that would truly > allow them to control any software that they have, regardless of its > underlying machinery. That would be a superhuman AI. If you succeed at this, I agree it would be a great advance. I'd rather spend our funds on areas where I expect that effort can result in progress. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.