From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Recentish C-s M-y change Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:17:45 -0500 Message-ID: References: <<87r1na4tyu.fsf@gnus.org>> <<87tus6tj7s.fsf@mail.linkov.net>> <<87a6txigm1.fsf@gnus.org>> <<874kk5lzew.fsf@mail.linkov.net>> <> <<87eej8ifll.fsf@mail.linkov.net>> <> <<87h7o3k5b5.fsf@mail.linkov.net>> <> <> <83wnwwg8iu.fsf@gnu.org> <837dovg687.fsf@gnu.org> <83pn2mcb78.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="5630"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: ams@gnu.org, juri@linkov.net, larsi@gnus.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 04 06:19:19 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kwIH0-0001Kr-Sd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 04 Jan 2021 06:19:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44960 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kwIGz-0004gg-Rx for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:19:17 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:45256) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kwIFd-0003pd-OS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:17:53 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:55335) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kwIFd-0006ef-GX; Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:17:53 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1kwIFV-0006kC-Ut; Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:17:46 -0500 In-Reply-To: <83pn2mcb78.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Eli Zaretskii on Sun, 03 Jan 2021 17:05:47 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:262394 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. ]]] > A "rule" that is enforced is something that people are required to > abide by, and if they don't, they should expect to be reprimanded. That is a strict kind of enforcement. There are gentler ways of giving some strength to the rule, and I think they would be preferable for this. > It > also means that changes should be rejected and/or reverted if they > weren't discussed up front on emacs-devel. Again, that is more strict than this rule calls for. > A "guideline" means we encourage people to start discussions about > changes they think might be controversial. What I have in mind is somewhere in between the two. Here is what I mean. 1. When people see a UI change being discussed in a bug report context, people should try to speak up and say, "Remember, the rule is we should discuss this on emacs-devel. Let's move this discussion there now!" 2. Someone should send mail to emacs-devel with a Subject line saying "UI change proposal: ", and a body proposing and explaining the change. 3. If someone notices the change after it is release, and objects, and if the discussion on emacs-devel did not happen as the rule calls for, then we would drop the usual reluctance to undo a change that had been in a release. That's all. Point 3 would be the "enforcement". It doesn't call for reprimands or for reverting changes precipitously. But it does have an effect, and that would encourage people to remember and follow the rule. 4. We would not actually revert the change -- after all, some people do like the changed behavior. Instead, we would add a variable to specify whether to use the changed behavior or the old behavior, and make the old behavior the default. This will satisfy everyone more or less. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)