From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: ken Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 07:29:46 -0400 Message-ID: <55684DAA.6000205@mousecar.com> References: Reply-To: gebser@mousecar.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1432899044 24238 80.91.229.3 (29 May 2015 11:30:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:30:44 +0000 (UTC) To: Stefan Monnier , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri May 29 13:30:35 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YyIUk-0002n9-L5 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 May 2015 13:30:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35209 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YyIUk-0004U6-4N for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 May 2015 07:30:34 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:56695) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YyIUV-0004TH-S5 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2015 07:30:24 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YyIUS-0002iq-M5 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2015 07:30:19 -0400 Original-Received: from mout.perfora.net ([74.208.4.194]:58999) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YyIUS-0002i2-Fn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2015 07:30:16 -0400 Original-Received: from dellap.mousecar.net ([66.219.160.17]) by mrelay.perfora.net (mreueus001) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0LykDJ-1ZDXPF0e5X-0165oG; Fri, 29 May 2015 13:30:14 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.6.0 In-Reply-To: X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:mw+9Y1XkeQ2CsO+5zXhUM4vLZBHUp4h3S+bAHLI0sU2NaXB3ON4 o0BdL+n9dny2FJw44+qr24RvLcWkvQxOO7ZZF9WpiXrWSZiFwdmXMu4cLPzXRGlQ4poL8mt RbeHdktFS5EY/X32VBYel13+O+91a2U99I8GNcVTwOvicI1bWHdlJf6Y8gyfGzqUkQLlh6n Cpl9YWOhpdPlC8/NkDAuw== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:MHyzg5EEzAU=:KzCB/umiDfYQ+CaWHQuJhD BCR5ZSHV5KaJ8q7bZpTcergSLlZePgToNgFHCqrZ2NU9fom+pJ6wswy5D2zDHprCtcEwUoYtF PPTE228mUGQaYx1oSYHeKEYPmk1/lc3XrDE7vqQ70tJcAfA2tUVQV1oS9wdIkSGvnqBuB3CKG BpjQuTz8/eQNq2cdF4L+FBkPyNz3xVPuT1T6RCO1uUCiTS0KpsoLsHqhj2QpoII7j9OgvwDJ7 n+wNlA2Z2BA3oxQnu+rzA9wq6eqhGSOTSiZvrSsWhyPxymMpExZCpn2ukzsE3M+gTK4BwEsIT L90v5BY4fMmbKbl+bGIEJjRKTzRlajwl4GnT7Bd/jMvk0SkKoWi/bsgy7tc8IsB/y24okoonn oqwpsbwPd+3AnzQU/moiMoIBEMlEI6PPsss9PhVOz3w2jTyCUSS5SfTqRnyJQXjDaJlX9vjym zPgp7jG0E0D/VHW//oEJcOsMFB12Xp6ccis+cQm4nH0DuafWAFO3/yrVDlH/38wYndMytotbO 9VCAxRKbjzGKKmocYJKIktUtTQ8DmQAoam0ZAaac6tlSIz8BhyxLIOXduPuMYJD6Rezo4S5R2 hLjXaVK/CMLwgfiamCY1zrIl1grMlj8wMUBgW64Y7Gu/Tnea850g6fsCjpaFA5TMCdDvxd5/z A+hyM7dL2WDtFbR/EYh99dwLGF+4rCcUzZInBbOXSRe8Xfg== X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 74.208.4.194 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:104662 Archived-At: On 05/28/2015 03:11 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote: >> Yesterday (5-28-15) I was listening to a NPR - John Hockenberry - >> "The Takeaway" session and starting about 45 minutes after the hour >> is a discussion which begins with emacs and then progresses to open >> source software in general. > > [ Sorry, no headphones to listen to the talk here. ] > Does it talk about Free Software as well? > > > Stefan They didn't really nail down the concept of FOSS, but just sort of contrasted "slow" software (e.g., Emacs) with commercial software, e.g., Word. It was more a touchy-feeling kind of talk, hit me like a woman talking about the joys of growing her own flax and with that making her own dresses and how she's more comfortable and satisfied in that than buying something off the shelf. Characterizing emacs (and other FOSS) as "slow" didn't however, I think, do us any favors. I'm sure a lot of people are going to miss the meaning and think, "I want *fast* software. Why would anybody want *slow* software!?" If the overall point could have been made better and with clearly unambiguous terms, it would have been much better. Just last week on another (non-technical) list someone asked, 'What software should I use for organizing my taxes?' She didn't say what OS she was using and I was pretty sure she was looking for a GUI app. I wanted to tell her that she could accomplish that just by using a sensible directory structure and meaningful filenames, but I didn't bother. I've already tried several times on that list to recommend _easy_ FOSS solutions, but people these days always want to buy an app or rent a service for every need they have and it's impossible to convince them otherwise. Indeed, a few years ago my boss, a young MBA, karate-chop guy, was looking for an app to create a network connection once a day between a Unix machine in one city and a linux box in our server room. I told him that capability was already built into the OSs. He'd read an article which convinced him the app needed to do de-duplication (copy the files to be transferred to another drive first). I said we could do that in-house too. Then he said he wanted _support_ for the "app". At that point I gave up. You can give a thirsty clown a glass of cool water, but if he won't take off his big, red nose, he won't be able to drink it.