Re: Knoppix is not entirely free software

[Peter S Galbraith <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

>     So perhaps we were premature in removing support for g...... in MH-E
>     then.  It was only one of many supported indexers.
> 
> That wasn't premature--I asked you to remove that code.
> 
> Unlike Netscape and Windows, G...... is a fairly obscure non-free
> program, so just telling people it exists and what it does tends to
> promote it.  Moreover, desupporting it in Emacs could well encourage
> people to switch to a free program that Emacs does support.

Those are hard guidelines to follow since they are not exactly fair.
 
> I wouldn't expect us to have much leverage convincing people to stop
> using Windows or even Netscape by desupporting it in Emacs; even
> Netscape probably has more users than Emacs does, and we would tend to
> reduce usership of Emacs rather than that of Netscape.  Meanwhile,
> mentioning the option of using Netscape won't very often inform people
> that Netscape exists, because they already know that.

You could still plan on removing support when free alternatives are as
good.  While I used netscape on GNU/Linux as my only browser some years
ago, I'm not even sure it's still available.  There are more than a
dozen gecko-based browsers now, and some work very well on Windows as
well.

On the other hand, I don't think we should slap netscape in the face
considering that they donated a lot of the code that made this happen
(through mozilla).

Peter