Re: Emacs in a Corporate Environment

[Corwin Brust <corwin@bru.st>]

On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 4:33 PM Yuan Cao <yuancao85@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> After completing the request, I started investigating the emacs
> installation and found the `org` directory in the
> `...\share\emacs\25.1\lisp` directory. When I tried to withdraw my
> request, I got hit with a list of questions I needed to ask the
> "vendor" to clarify for OrgMode and Emacs. I am not sure who I can
> ask, and the questions feel odd for Emacs.
>
> The inquiry is:
> "[...] confirm whether any advanced algorithms, predictive analytics,
> dynamic components, machine learning, or artificial intelligence are
> used within this product, and whether any part of the input or output
> process involves any of these techniques. Examples of non-traditional
> modeling capabilities include but are not limited to: auto-complete or
> suggested text functionalities; optical character recognition (OCR) or
> other image recognition and processing; transcription, translation,
> speech-to-text or text-to-speech; search engines; virtual assistants;
> and other assistive technologies."

It sounds like the main concerns here are in the general area of
"information leakage". It may be helpful to understand that this is
also a major concern for GNU (and an important area of focus for the
Free Software Society in terms of our guiding philosophies).

No part of Emacs (including org) comes set up to send information to
other systems beyond the host on which Emacs is running. Especially,
Emacs is NOT equipped to connect to/with "Software as a Service"
providers, to which GNU/FSF are categorically opposed.

Responding point-by-point to the mentioned capabilities:
- auto-complete provided with Emacs does not use resources external to
Emacs; it is limited to scanning the files/projects being editing,
their "CTAGS", etc.
- suggested text is possible to configure, using the same (local to
the machine running Emacs) functionality as for auto-complete
- NO optical character recognition or other image recognition included
- Image processing is limited to
   - displaying
   - scaling
   - rotating
   - cropping, and
   - playing multi-frame (animated) images
   - Emacs also provides image creation primitives; It is possible
(although a bit painful, perhaps) to use Emacs as a drawing tool
- NO text-to-speech is provided with Emacs
- NO search engines are integrated with Emacs
- Emacs does not have any virtual assistant (nothing AI/ML driven
whatsoever is integrated with Emacs)

>
> I guess I am a little new to this process, so I might be overreacting.
> I just want to make sure that Emacs isn't taken away.
>
> This is a little embarrassing, but I hope this can help someone else
> avoid being in the same situation.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Yuan

Hopefully, others will answer and/or help corroborate (or refine) my
answers.  Don't be embarrassed.  It's embarrassing that