Re: [ELPA] New package: repology.el

["Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org>]

   > From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org>
   > Cc: eliz@gnu.org, bugs@gnu.support, arthur.miller@live.com,
   > 	rms@gnu.org, ulm@gentoo.org, emacs-tangents@gnu.org
   > Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2021 16:07:13 -0500
   > 
   >    > You are exagerating.  Nobody is saying don't do research, I'm quite
   >    > sure you are capable of finding that information on your own.  But it
   >    > is a different thing for GNU do provide that information for you.
   > 
   >    But GNU software shouldn't help me in research?
   > 
   > In the research of non-free software, obviously no.

   And that is a serious problem, because GNU maintainers need to do that
   quite frequently, as part of their job they do for GNU.

As a GNU maintainer you can use other venues to find that information,
again nobody is stopping _you_.  But the GNU _project_ or GNU
_software_ is not there to help you find non-free software.

I do not understand what is so confusing here, how you as a person (in
the capacity of a mainainter or not) wish to figure out stuff and what
the GNU project links to are two entierly orthogonal issues.  

Its like asking why the GNU project doesn't provide information about
finding good polka candy recipies, its outside the scope of the
project (ignoring the issue that non-free software being immoral and
unethical).

   And other software users and professionals are likely to do that as
   well, in order to study software algorithms and implementations.  Let
   me remind you that (AFAIK) one of the main reasons for starting GNU
   was the inability to share ideas about software design and
   implementation, due to commercial entities' enforcement of a system
   where showing the code was prohibited.  It would be ironic if the GNU
   project prevented its followers from exercising the same freedom, by
   denying us the information about where to find that source code to
   begin with.

It doesn't prevent anyone from doing any kind of research, it is just
not the place for GNU to help you in doing said research.  There have
been lists (e.g., the high priority list) of functionality which is
lacking on free operating systems -- sometimes even mentioning very
well known non-free software we (the project) wishes to replace.

But when the program is unknown, one can simply list the features one
wishes a program to have and not give it the extra promotion.  Since
if we say that a program has no free software counter part, it would
be quite normal for someone to go decide that they will install the
non-free program until such a day.  And that would be working against
the goal.