Re: Emacs vista build failures

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

'Morning, David,

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 10:50:01AM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> > Morning, everybody!

> > On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 05:20:16PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> >> >     > When I ask myself, is the world better for having Emacs and Firefox
> >> >     > running on Microsoft Windows, the answer is an unequivocal yes -
> >> >     > people who hack on MS-Windows can thus do a better job.

> > [David K:]
> >> >     But their job does not in general benefit others.

> > Hmm.  What if that software written on w32 has satisfied users?

> What of it?

It refutes your contention "their job does not in general benefit
others".

> > [David K:]
> >> >     So we are creating better opportunities for work that does not
> >> >     help the community.

> > "The" community.  That of Free Software is merely one of many
> > interlocking and interdependent communities.

> It is the one the GNU project cares about.

Along, hopefully, with the one that grows its food, the one that
generates and supplies its electricity, the one the designs and builds
cheap hardware, the ones that enable easy travel, the one that sends in
the sand bags when the Elba floods, ......

> > My view, already expressed, is that we have a moral imperative to
> > contribute towards the wellbeing of the world, not just our own
> > restricted subset of it.

> It is not restricted.  Anybody who cares can be a part of it.  We are
> no longer in the situation that you have to run free software off
> unfree operating systems.  We don't have a moral imperative to help
> those who refuse to be helped.  That's a waste of resources.

I disagree wholeheartedly with the semantic shift, the sentiment and the
characterisation.

> > My impression is that a substantial minority, possibly even a
> > majority, of Emacs users run on this particular non-free OS, and that
> > the cost of supporting them is low by comparison.

> The cost is that they don't care about using or improving free systems.

Again, not true.  Many Emacs users on MS-Windows use Emacs, submit bug
reports and some even hack elisp.

> > Carry on doing it, Eli!

> > Again, what is the purpose of free software?  Is it an end in itself,
> > it's final goal being its exclusive use by everybody, or is it to
> > improve the world?  If the former, I hope the goal is never scored,
> > because then free software would by stymied, with nowhere to go.

> It is to improve the world, and the world is not improved by locking
> people into Windows.  A developer using Emacs for developing Windows
> software will lock his users into Windows.

This will often be the case.  Other times, Windows will be merely a
platform for developing portable software or embedded software.  The
ethos of free software is that its creators do not constrain what its
users may do with it, even if that aim is writing non-free software.

I believe that people are best persuaded to use free software by seeing
how good it is.  The only context an MS-Windows user is going to see free
software in is on MS-Windows.  Firefox and Emacs are prime examples.
I don't believe people will switch operating systems in order to use free
application software - they will switch after seeing how good free
software is.  I think you are of the opposite opinion, and I can accept
that.

> There is enough other software that has this effect.  It is not a
> particularly interesting goal to make Emacs do the same.  The idea of
> free software is not to provide a comfortable place for people willing
> to give up their rights.  Like with democracy, given the choice many
> people will be perfectly happy to take choices compromising their
> freedoms.

> It is not an objective for free software to make it easier for them.  It
> is a sideeffect.  Freedom rarely comes without the choice or ability to
> foresake it again.  It is fragile, and only letting people keep that in
> mind gives it strength.

Here I agree with you.  Freedom cannot happen until people grasp what it
is.  The FSF, especially Richard, have been doing a splendid job here,
but the job is not yet done.

> It appears that we are not exactly doing a good job.  Emacs is
> one-of-a-kind, and so there are not really any technically equivalent
> alternatives, free or non-free.  Should we treat this as a strength or
> as a weakness?

No, we shouldn't.  We should improve Emacs.

> David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).