From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jean Louis Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: not good proposal: "C-z " reserved for users Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 12:56:51 +0300 Message-ID: References: <87y2ftroma.fsf@zoho.eu> <87y2fs2wyu.fsf@robertthorpeconsulting.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="40287"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Mutt/2.0 (3d08634) (2020-11-07) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, Emanuel Berg To: Robert Thorpe Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sat Feb 13 10:58:46 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lArhM-000ALV-Tv for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 10:58:45 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50314 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lArhL-0003B6-Ue for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 04:58:43 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:44238) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lArgs-0003Av-Uq for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 04:58:14 -0500 Original-Received: from stw1.rcdrun.com ([217.170.207.13]:46241) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lArgm-0007FU-CH for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 04:58:14 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([::ffff:41.202.241.3]) (AUTH: PLAIN securesender, TLS: TLS1.2,256bits,ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384) by stw1.rcdrun.com with ESMTPSA id 000000000001E089.000000006027A2AD.000065CA; Sat, 13 Feb 2021 02:58:04 -0700 Mail-Followup-To: Robert Thorpe , Emanuel Berg , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87y2fs2wyu.fsf@robertthorpeconsulting.com> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=217.170.207.13; envelope-from=bugs@gnu.support; helo=stw1.rcdrun.com X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:127923 Archived-At: * Robert Thorpe [2021-02-13 11:29]: > Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor > writes: > > > Jean Louis wrote: > > > >> I do not consider that survey authentic. But let us say it > >> is. In my opinion that 30% from the survey is much greater > >> number in reality. If we assume that 30% would apply also to > >> those who reported Emacs installations in Debian GNU/Linux > >> than there is at least 4800 users among those 16000 who > >> reported using Emacs in that OS. > > > > Is this another survey I didn't hear about? > > > > Please always provide reference(s) when you make claims that > > involve data. > > I don't know where Jean Louis got his info from. I assume the Debian > survey is the "popcon" one. You can find the results for Emacs here: > > https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=emacs That is one that I used, then I have amplified it by the estimated number of Ubuntu users and used the percentage of Emacs users in popularity contest to find about estimated number of total Emacs users. My email is somewhere in the mailing lists. > The Emacs usage survey mentioned was shared on Emacs-Devel but not here. > I don't know why. It was shared in some other places too. I get the > impression it was by someone very modern who isn't into things like > email lists. I think that author rushed and unintentionally neglected possible communication channels. > I don't know if it's millions, but lots of people use Emacs. As you can > see, the Debian survey shows about 14000. Also, there are 49000 > subscribers to Emacs Reddit. I suspect not every Emacs user is on > Reddit, so the number is probably higher than 49000. There are categories how people use Emacs. Only enthusiastic ones will report on bug reporting lists or public websites. But if we speak of global number of users that must be in millions. Some references: https://askubuntu.com/questions/80379/how-many-ubuntu-users-are-there-worldwide#80383 They wish to have 200 million Ubuntu users in 2015: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/mark-shuttleworth-delivers-uds-keynote-address-sets-goal-for-200-million-ubuntu-users-in-4-years Now Debian Popularity Contest: https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=emacs Let us say the number of "emacs" installation is 13% in Debian. The rank shows 6.83% among all packages. Correct me if I am wrong. Does that 6.83% mean that among all packages installed 6.83% of users installed Emacs? I am not sure any more. dpkg number of installations is 204612 and dpkg is on first place emacs number of installations is 13973 and (defun pct-of-number-in-total (number total) "Return the percentage that NUMBER represents in a TOTAL." (let* ((percent (/ (float total) 100)) (percentage (/ (float number) percent))) percentage)) (pct-of-number-in-total 13973 204612) yields 6.8290227357144255 Popularity contest is not reported by all users, just by some. I am assuming that Ubuntu users are very similar to Debian users. Then it means to me that 6.82% users of supposed 200 million of Ubuntu users must be also Emacs users. That alone would make 13,640,000 Emacs users. There is number of millions of uncounted Debian users, Arch Linux users, other GNU/Linux users and BSD derivatives and so many other distributions with Emacs inside. Add that to the amount above. There are those enthusiastic users, having or showing great excitement and interest, and there are those who are just users without great excitement. There is great number of Bash users who are not enthusiastic, would never report any bugs, would not publish programs or would not program at all, but would be using shell with unimpressed "So what?" statement. I am just assuming that ratio of enthusiastic Bash users is so much less to the number of non enthusiastic users than Emacs' ratio. Do people form online communities around Bash? Do they have forums? Do they participate equally in mailing lists? That is how I think of enthusiastic users in Bash world. The ratio is probably less than the number of enthusiastic users in Emacs. Those enthusiastic will report somewhere, we know about them at least as commenters, bug reporters, readers of the forum if not participants. Somewhat enthusiastic user will read at least what others are saying. Non-enthusiastic will not even read it, but will be user. When changing something in Emacs we better think on the impact of all users. There is large number of proprietary software users who install free software VPS-es and dedicated servers worldwide, one part of them may expect the decades old function to work. Those are professionals providing various software. In my opinion there is more proprietary software users who use free software on VPS-es and dedicated servers than exclusively free software users. Those are business makers, business mostly come from proprietary software makers and users. That is how I perceive the world of today. They may not be GNU/Linux users at all -- but they may be Windows users who spawn VPS-es and/or use dedicated servers for business, setting up databases for customers, maintaining their operating systems, websites, serious or crucial business operations. Such users will never even report in. Debian popularity contest. They use software for business, not for fan. Then we come here on our mailing lists and among 20 people or maybe 50 people, somebody may decide capriciously to break some decades old function or some key binding for the sake of future reservation of imaginary third party packages, something like that. Just few of those 50 people will be thinking on the worldwide impact. Some will thinkg that Emacs users report to Emacs mailing lists, and if those do not report, they cannot be Emacs users and will assume that changes impact only those who report to Emacs list. Just few of wise people will be aware of the global impact. Surely, Emacs is distributed without warranty, but legal liability does not exclude human responsibility, that is why developers work on improving it. They do carry large responsibilities. And they have to be enough confident to do anything including breaking some compatibilities and destryoing some things in exchange for creation of new things. That is why there is longer period of time until new Emacs development versions become "stable". Breaking some function may then impact users, their work, their efforts, their money flow, they may lose data, they may even lose a job if they lose data, it may impact their life and families. Before some decades I worked for free in humanitarian organization. Computer got stuck. It was running proprietary Windoze system on good hardware. The Windoze system froze. There was no way to shut it down. It had to be hard reset and after hard reset there was no data on hard disk any more. Hard disk worked without problems. There was no virus or anything. Data of the work of last 6 months was lost, including some letters, numbers, etc. All important and valuable. Would that not be humanitarian organization I would have or could probably lose the job when such thing happens regardless if it was not my fault. Maybe family could depend of the person there. One mistake in program does have butterfly effects worldwide.[1] So removing a function in Emacs that is assumed to be there by millions of users does have some effect and impact on those users. They may never report about it. They may be affected without importing. Jean 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect