From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: My resignation from Emacs development Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2024 15:13:18 +0000 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35026"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 20 16:14:10 2024 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 1tDmPB-0008w9-7O for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:14:09 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1tDmOX-0007Co-89; Wed, 20 Nov 2024 10:13:29 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1tDmOT-0007CO-5w for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Nov 2024 10:13:25 -0500 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1tDmOR-0006Nm-2i for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Nov 2024 10:13:24 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 97335 invoked by uid 3782); 20 Nov 2024 16:13:19 +0100 Original-Received: from muc.de (p4fe15cf8.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [79.225.92.248]) (using STARTTLS) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:13:19 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 10896 invoked by uid 1000); 20 Nov 2024 15:13:18 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline X-Submission-Agent: TMDA/1.3.x (Ph3nix) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de Received-SPF: pass client-ip=193.149.48.3; envelope-from=acm@muc.de; helo=mail.muc.de X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_RPBL_BLOCKED=0.001, RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_SAFE_BLOCKED=0.001, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:325520 Archived-At: Hello, Emacs. I'm resigning my position as Emacs contributor. The immediate reason is that, as maintainer of CC Mode, CC Mode's symbols, its names, were taken by Emacs and used for other purposes without informing me, much less consulting me. That makes my position as CC Mode maintainer here untenable. Eli Zaretskii and I have had extensive discussions, both in public and in private email, over the last week or so, but we have been unable to reach any satisfactory compromise solution. Names are important. They have power. To take somebody's/somthing's name and misuse it is an exercise of aggression. Try using "Emacs" or even "free software" to mean something different, and see just how quickly you would hear back from Richard Stallman. This misuse of CC Mode's "trademarks", the symbols `c-mode', `c++-mode', and perhaps `c-or-c++-mode', is just such an act of aggression. These symbols have been appropriated by Emacs to mean "the current preferred mode for C", etc., rather than C Mode, C++ Mode etc. In certain circumstances, in particular, in Local Variables: sections and auto-mode-alist, there is now no longer any way unambiguously to specify C Mode or C++ Mode. Up till recently ("\\.myc\\'" . c-mode) in auto-mode-alist meant C Mode, and would have had the effect of auto-loading CC Mode, if needed, and running C Mode. The change took place in the commit for bug#69191 "New var `major-mode-remap-defaults`, for packages". It sounds so innocent, but is an extremely bad solution for whatever problem (unspecified in the commit message) it was intended to solve. A major mode using it changes the interfaces of other libraries in an uncontrolled way. This is not good software engineering. This bug was raised and committed by Stefan Monnier. Despite the fact that the bug fix directly impinged upon CC Mode, and there was even a change to cc-mode.el in the patch, he failed even to inform me. The only two modes substantially affected by this change were ruby-mode and CC Mode, and it is clear that Dmitry Gutov, maintainer of ruby-mode, was aware of the change. Had I known of this proposal, I would certainly have objected to it. Stefan is intelligent enough to have realised this, and maybe his avoidance of open discussion was motivated by this. Bug#69191 was a big change. In Emacs, we have a convention whereby big changes are discussed openly on emacs-devel and a consensus reached before the change is made. Stefan Monnier has regularly violated this convention, possibly believing that his ideas for Emacs are so good as to be beyond question. Any attempt to question his ideas is likely to be met by evasive non-answers, if any response at all is forthcoming. I could give several paragraphs worth of justification for these assertions, but I think everybody here knows I am right. In Emacs there is also a convention of treating eachother with respect on the mailing lists. Sadly this convention is superficial, and seems only to mean things like not using swear words. The truly contemptuous communication style, this evasive non-answering, seems to be regarded as acceptable. I suggest that this change. Stefan's habit of making big changes in Emacs without seeking consensus is at the heart of why I am resigning. These changes have caused Emacs a lot of damage over the years and have caused other contributors, including me, extra work and difficulty. Stefan is a Jekyll-and-Hyde character. On the one hand, he's a very capable hacker, and is always ready to help others with technical questions. On the other hand, as mentioned, he is contemptuous of the Emacs conventions, and unlike Richard and Eli, does not have the gift of knowing what the Right Thing is. I strongly recommend that Stefan somehow be reigned in and required to observe Emacs's conventions about open discussion and courteous communication. As I mentioned, his violations of these are at the core of why I feel unable to continue contributing to Emacs. I will shortly be unsubscribing from emacs-devel. I intend to carry on maintaining stand alone CC Mode, and I'm prepared to deal with any CC Mode issues which arise in Emacs. Please post these to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org. It just remains to say that my respect for Eli and the other maintainers remains undiminished, and that I wish all of them and the Emacs project all success in the future. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).