From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tassilo Horn Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Release plans Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:42:13 +0200 Message-ID: <200808191542.13388.tassilo@member.fsf.org> References: <10697146.3630221218551689983.JavaMail.www@wwinf4615> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1219153483 23184 80.91.229.12 (19 Aug 2008 13:44:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:44:43 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org, "Richard M. Stallman" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 19 15:45:36 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KVRWE-0008C0-Sy for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:45:07 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:36898 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KVRVH-00038e-P9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:44:07 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KVRVC-00037h-KI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:44:02 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KVRVB-00037N-VF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:44:02 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=56614 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KVRVB-00037K-OS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:44:01 -0400 Original-Received: from deliver.uni-koblenz.de ([141.26.64.15]:12668) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KVRV7-0007py-2p; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:43:57 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by deliver.uni-koblenz.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id A146D7897E4B; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:43:55 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from deliver.uni-koblenz.de ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (deliver.uni-koblenz.de [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 20520-06; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:43:54 +0200 (CEST) X-CHKRCPT: Envelopesender vrfy tassilo@member.fsf.org Original-Received: from thinkpad.localnet (unknown [141.26.67.4]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by deliver.uni-koblenz.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 827A578979B8; Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:43:54 +0200 (CEST) User-Agent: KMail/1.10.0 (Linux/2.6.26-gentoo-r1; KDE/4.1.62; x86_64; ; ) In-Reply-To: Content-Disposition: inline X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at uni-koblenz.de X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:102659 Archived-At: On Tuesday 19 August 2008 14:21:01 Richard M. Stallman wrote: Hi! > Yes, indeed, but its also trivial to patch Emacs to run non-free > extensions today. > > It is not trivial for most people. But it's trivial for everybody who is capable of writing such a non-free module. So let's say I want to distribute a non-free module (just an example, I'm on the good side!). In order to do that right now, I'd do the following steps. 1. I fork emacs and put some dynamic module loading facility in it, and release the whole thing under GPLv3. Because the patch already exists, that's not much work. 2. I provide my non-free module for my fork. Now let's say emacs had a module loading facility, and each module would have to register itself as being free in order to allow its loading. If I wanted to create a non-free module then, I had two possibilities. - Falsely register my module as free and FSF and me will meet at court. (Is there a danger that a court will decide it's legal to register a module as free if it's not?) - Fork emacs like above and put the registration code out. So basically I can always provide non-free modules if I fork emacs. The costs for that are very low, no matter if emacs has or has no module loading facility. So let's now assume I want to provide a free module. Currently (without the module loader) I'd have to fork emacs, too. But I'm a member of the free software community, so I don't want to do that. As a result I'll try to work around the limitations with some ugly hacks like a command line interface for the library I want to use. So to summarize: For someone who wants to create a non-free module, the costs are the same, no matter if emacs has or has no dynamic module loading support. For someone who wants to create a free module, the availability of this feature in GNU Emacs is crucial. The only danger I can see is that a module loader plus some nice, free modules would push emacs reputation that high and create such an hype that industry rediscoveres it as platform for their products. Honestly, before that happens the moon becomes a square! ;-) And at last I want to point out some features SXEmacs has (which has a full blown foreign function interface) which could be very useful. * Use emacs as X11 window manager (talk directly to XLib or xcb). * It supports all image formats the free ImageMagick library supports. * It has enhanced numbed types by binding to some free math library. * It has some direct bindings to various databases. * It downloads files by directly using libcurl. Bye, Tassilo