Re: Icon designer wanted (Aquamacs Emacs)

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

david.reitter@gmail.com writes:

>> There is no market. Free developers don't produce
>> commodities. They aren't looking for customers. They are
>> freely working to create a free tool (which is always better
>> than the tools which are commodities).
>
> What good is a free tool if it isn't used?

You can build upon it to get something that can be used.  It is a step
forward for everyone.  If you cut yourself off from the progress, all
improvements are no longer steps forward for everyone, but lead into a
private dead end.

> How will people learn about the advantages of freedom, if not by
> exercising it?

The value of a free press is not cheap newspapers.

> Isn't it naïve to think that many people will eventually use tools for
> the spirit involved in their making, even though the tools are
> inconvenient?

Since most free software got into being technically inferior to the
proprietary offers, naivety seems to rule history.

> Let's strive for technically excellence through exercising our
> freedom!

But by cutting other's off from the benefits of said freedoms, you
make your excellence short-lived.

> Practically, something like the Aquamacs distribubtion and the vast
> majority of software in general has started out of practical needs.
> That's what Linus Torvalds says about Linux.

Torvalds said no such thing.  He wanted a system with the freedom to
tamper with.  GNU was perfect for that, but had no kernel.  So he
wrote a kernel.  For the purpose of being able to tamper with it.
Which is one of the fundamental freedoms of free software.

> Aquamacs has thousands of "customers" who use it to do their
> jobs. They don't use it just because it's cool to have free software
> installed.

And will probably never help to improve the software.  And even if
they do, they will likely only help you to improve Aquamacs, and the
improvements will never be available upstream.  And that means that
people will get _locked_ into MacOSX _by_ Aquamacs.  And that is
diminuishing their freedom.

> I personally hated the way X deals with selection, the mouse, and
> copying&pasting.  I hated the non-working font settings in Emacs. I
> disliked the fact that the window system isn't used to its
> potential.  Practical needs.

So the way would have been to improve Emacs for everybody instead of
just yourself.  Yes, this is more work.  Yes, it means that one has to
coordinate with other people.  Yes, it means having to make
compromises.  But it also means contributing to the source of freedom
instead of just profiting to it.  It is a nuisance, but you would have
nothing to play with if others had not bothered with this nuisance.

> Of course, there's the other view, and that's what the GNU people
> here are putting forward. Developing software from an ideological
> starting point. That's fine, too.
>
> In the end, it's the combination of technical advantage and
> intellectual basis that makes things attractive.

But if you make if impossible to combine your technical advantages
with the upstream code base, there is nothing attractive in it for
anyone except the proponents of proprietary systems.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum