From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [elpa] Excorporate: Exchange integration package Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2015 13:40:38 +0100 Message-ID: <874mqvuuk9.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1423485652 14725 80.91.229.3 (9 Feb 2015 12:40:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2015 12:40:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Stefan Monnier , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Thomas Fitzsimmons Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Feb 09 13:40:52 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@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 1YKndz-0004tC-FC for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 09 Feb 2015 13:40:51 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60635 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKndy-0005dP-Ss for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 09 Feb 2015 07:40:50 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46049) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKndq-0005cM-3y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 09 Feb 2015 07:40:43 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKndo-0003Bs-TH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 09 Feb 2015 07:40:42 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:51902) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKndo-0003Bk-7N for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 09 Feb 2015 07:40:40 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:59077 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKndn-00008Y-4U; Mon, 09 Feb 2015 07:40:39 -0500 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 75485DF676; Mon, 9 Feb 2015 13:40:38 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: (Thomas Fitzsimmons's message of "Mon, 09 Feb 2015 07:24:52 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:182680 Archived-At: Thomas Fitzsimmons writes: > Stefan Monnier writes: > >>> I wrote a library called Excorporate that allows Emacs to talk to an >>> Exchange server over the Exchange Web Services API. I would like to >>> release it as a GNU ELPA package. In the meantime, you can try it out >>> like this: >> >> I think I'm going to turn this one down, sorry. >> >> We generally don't want packages that offer support for >> proprietary programs. It's OK for packages to support proprietary >> programs "as a side-effect" of supporting something else, but packages >> that only support proprietary programs are usually undesirable since >> they end up promoting those proprietary programs, which is counter to >> the goals of Free Software. > > OK, I'm definitely sympathetic to this view. In this regard, my main > concern is that it's currently impossible for other Emacs developers > to test Excorporate using/against only Free Software. One idea is if > OpenChange could grow EWS support in tandem with the features that > Excorporate actually uses, then there would be a Free Software option > for full Excorporate testing at all times (note: I'm not necessarily > signing up for this work). Would that improve the appeal of > Excorporate for ELPA? >> In this case, I think this argument doesn't work, since you can >> already use Emacs to access an Exchange server via IMAP (tho that >> admittedly only covers some part of the functionality;and I don't >> know if other parts can be similarly accessed via other standard >> protocols or not). > > The counter-argument here is that Exchange Web Services is essentially > just providing a network service. As long as this network service does not obey open standards and is subject to change under the whim of a corporate identity, it is not helpful for free software to encourage this interface over more reliably available free ones. > From following emacs-devel I was under the impression that Free > Software that talks to a network service over a protocol was OK, > regardless of what was implementing the protocol on the other end. But not regardless of who controls the details of the protocol under which conditions. Also not regardless of existing implementations of such protocol. If it's only supported by non-free software, there is really not much of a point for GNU software to support it. Even if there is support via a reverse-engineering clone like Samba (no idea whether this is the case), one needs to look very carefully whether this makes enough strategic sense to stand behind. Stuff like Samba is really very much an outskirt into proprietary software. Supporting all of its aspects may not always be strategically sound. Often we might rather support protocols not under the control of single proprietary vendors. -- David Kastrup