From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Icon designer wanted (Aquamacs Emacs) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:56:26 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <85ek3msrqt.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <54321A2A-3F36-4416-B473-49AC11FF057F@gmail.com> <853bk5gwa8.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <792D87C1-B9A9-495E-9335-7139845D1CB0@gmail.com> <85fyo4zvei.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87sls47lvd.fsf@vh213602.truman.edu> <85wthftsme.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <874q4jrvcg.fsf@vh213602.truman.edu> <1136466925.401877.151800@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1136480868 11972 80.91.229.2 (5 Jan 2006 17:07:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 17:07:48 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jan 05 18:07:46 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EuYZJ-0000mJ-R6 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:06:30 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EuYb2-0004bq-Qn for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 05 Jan 2006 12:08:16 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!newsfeed.arcor.de!news.arcor.de!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:eYjl994KtU4GFC6fx/VK/72mCmE= Original-Lines: 100 Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 05 Jan 2006 14:56:22 MET Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: da55ef15.newsread4.arcor-online.net Original-X-Trace: DXC=?4d[mDk=m7RD__2dTlB=E[:ejgIfPPldTjW\KbG]kaMXGSi?jHD8GOPLH8JVf>WOBX1_LiI6ENVa]3>5MOK` List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:32448 Archived-At: david.reitter@gmail.com writes: > Jay Belanger: > >> For people who to whom the free software movement >> is important, improvements to the Mac and/or Windows version which >> cannot be folded back into the main version would not be a good thing, >> it would seem. > > I don't think we disagree. But my thinking is that having free software > with a high degree of usability at least on a partially proprietary > system (such as Mac OS X) is better than having the less "lickable" > interface at all, i.e. on no system. With that stance, free software would have never taken off, since it started out, naturally, as being inferior to existing proprietary solutions. Only people that value freedom above convenience will ever carry the torch so far that at one point one need no longer choose between the two. > So the technique is to develop stuff on the partially proprietary > system and port it to the ideologically less questionable free > system. Of course, we'll do so in a way that doesn't preclude us > from porting it back, even though we won't do all the work right now > (e.g. legal business). Exactly what happened with XEmacs. Getting assignments gets exponentially harder with time. As people get less interested in former projects, they can't be bothered with footwork like that. You are afraid to scare off developers with copyright assignments when they are actively helping to scratch their itch, and think that they will do so with pleasure when they have no ties to the project anymore? Get real. You are headed for permanent forking for the sake of a non-free platform. It's the privilege of history to go unheeded. > Anything else has only been alledged by other participants in this > discussion. Alleged? Actually, I thought I was being rather blunt about this. > How far people want to go with this port is their business. As long > as I'm not getting paid for it, I said, hey, happy to do development > work, happy to document sources, but not happy to push various > people to sign certain contracts and not happy to accept > technologically inferior solutions just because they aren't > available for all operating systems yet. > People draw the line at some point, and we all need to respect > that. Sure. Your line is drawn at a position where it does not help free software, and it looks like you are headed in a direction where it will become impossible that this changes. You are free to draw the line there for yourself, and I am free to call the line by its name. > I've had a dozen people tell me in the past year that they can't > contribute or can't contribute more because they don't have time. My > initial collaborator had to bail out because he's got kids, wife, > and a business and these things simply had priority. You have to > accept that, say thanks for your help and your contribution, and > move on. And you'll think that a few years later those people will sign legal papers? Very likely. A lot of multi-person projects have sunken into oblivion because past contributors changed their mind, could not be brought around, or even contacted anymore. Suddenly a developer dies: what will you write to the inheritors to convince them that it would have been the wish of the deceased to make this software freely available? When he did not bother catering for it while he lived? Yes, the necessity of paperwork has killed projects. But many more projects ended in a dead end because people bothered too late about it. > Reacting with hostility just because someone isn't willing to > contribute further, or contribute all that the ideology behind the > organization providing this mailing list requires will only make > matters worse. You are confusing hostility with bluntness. If you doubt my opinion, ask on the Emacs developer list how good an idea they think it if you work on improving the icons in Aquamacs only without heeding the requirements for upstream Emacs. Or ask on an appropriate internal GNU mailing list whether people consider this a helpful course for free software in general. You are free to draw your line there. But it helps nobody to pretend it is somewhere else. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum