Re: Emacs project mission (was Re: "If you're still seeing problems, please reopen.")

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Eli.

On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 16:14:10 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> > Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2019 22:06:46 -0500
> > Cc: ofv@wanadoo.es, larsi@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, michael.albinus@gmx.de,
> >  perry@piermont.com

> > Sure, all else being equal we would prefer to offer more
> > convenient interfaces.  But is that such an imperative
> > that we would want to pay a price for it?  I am skeptical.

> I think the idea is that most people nowadays have some kind of
> account already -- either in gmail, or in facebook, or in one of the
> other services that GitLab is capable of using instead of a GitLab
> specific registration.

Please reconsider.  I don't think the GNU project should in any way
endorse companies like Facebook or Google or Microsoft, which are no
friends of free software (except their use of free (as in beer)
software).  Their way of making money is by immorally, surreptitiously,
and in many cases illegally collecting their users' personal data and
selling it on.

> So for those people who have one of these accounts, registration is
> not an issue, and there's no real price to pay.

There would be a heavy price for the GNU project, namely its
credibility.

Not even if it makes authentication easier for some users.  It is a line
we just shouldn't cross.

Personally, I think requiring any sort of registration to report a bug
is so inconsiderate that we just shouldn't do it.  Reporting a bug takes
a significant amount of effort as it is, and requiring people who do it
to register is like a slap on the face.

[ .... ]

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).