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: could matlab-mode be in ELPA or the GNU emacs tree (like auctex and org-mode)? Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2021 21:30:11 -0500 Message-ID: References: <878rxiu323.fsf@mat.ucm.es> 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="9886"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Uwe Brauer Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 22 03:31:52 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 1moz7Y-0002QK-3M for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 22 Nov 2021 03:31:52 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56194 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1moz7T-0004SZ-3b for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 21 Nov 2021 21:31:48 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:42820) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1moz5w-0003aj-W2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Nov 2021 21:30:13 -0500 Original-Received: from [2001:470:142:3::e] (port=44954 helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1moz5w-0003dA-Bz; Sun, 21 Nov 2021 21:30:12 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=Date:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: mime-version; bh=98EiKWvxQe4NPpbfIGBT5UbBGT3qdfeTgTn/DqVWjTA=; b=dlKIuNjNf6OD 1xyJJhZwIgwFG1QOUjhV4udqaRQqlo+8453mxipqAK6iZLQ1lJNcApV2AH/uie0ryfCBmM9as1xQN JY+q7CexFVnDm5T+6nFfzkk98IOig/I/4+Vf4GQpmXOgc2FGVijdKWBbhh91ZvZgASdlrFitZgkpu EYEYJHcH7yAKfxjwP8LKsg1jzTlTtVc5aOzPUcu+2XKyOyyXvP4PhNZtFWsRxQiGSGc4Dl7xM26dJ boRlApeCCiFs60746xobki+EvIN+a/47qchPK/nAqPENxXvzHty2LXUk1v3IMv2ovxWAX2ftzzONL 0Os3KJ1h+qPclWmU+Y+qrA==; Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1moz5v-000415-9O; Sun, 21 Nov 2021 21:30:12 -0500 In-Reply-To: <878rxiu323.fsf@mat.ucm.es> (message from Uwe Brauer on Sat, 20 Nov 2021 18:53:08 +0100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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:279901 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. ]]] > I know that matlab is a commercial product and its license is not > compatible with the GPL, but the same could be said about MS Windows OS > and MacOS and yet GNU Emacs support these OSs. The GNU Project has standard about what to do in situations like this. Its conclusion in this case is that it is ok to include Matlab mode in Emacs. Likewise, ok to make Emacs run on Windows or MacOS. See the GNU Coding Standards, node References, for the way we reason about questions like this. I urge everyone here to read it. First, what are our goals? We want to lead/help users of Matlab to try using Emacs. We want NOT to lead/help users of Emacs to try using Matlab. In practice, I think Matlab mode will not do the latter, not much. It will mainly do the former. Why so? Because a tool like Matlab is more domain-specific than an editor. Basically, most users would not find Matlab or Octave useful; those who WOULD find them useful probably already know about them. Thus, there is little chance that someone reading about Emacs's Matlab mode would trigger per to use Matlab. But it might lead a Matlab user to try using Emacs with it. It is good for Emacs to suggest to Matlab users that they use Emacs with Matlab. But we should be careful to avoid going the other way! The node References explains more. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)