Re: Fwd: Re: ns-do-applescript

[Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>]

Jon Snader <jcs@irreal.org> writes:

> Do you hear yourself? I don't want to be impolite and I do, believe
> me, appreciate the hard work that you and the other Emacs maintainers
> selflessly provide to the community but this is beyond silly.

That rule is specified in the information for maintainers of GNU
software, in the node "Platforms":

  The most important platforms for a GNU package to support are GNU and
  GNU/Linux. Developing the GNU operating system is the whole point of
  the GNU Project; a GNU package exists to make the whole GNU system
  more powerful. So please keep that goal in mind and let it shape your
  work. For instance, every new feature you add should work on GNU, and
  GNU/Linux if possible too. If a new feature only runs on GNU and
  GNU/Linux, it could still be acceptable. However, a feature that runs
  only on other systems and not on GNU or GNU/Linux makes no sense in a
  GNU package.

Anyway, the removal of ns-do-applescript will probably proceed, once I
figure out how to replace the code that uses it in-tree (mostly for
desktop notifications, which are also available on free systems, and
retrieving contacts data.)

> In the first place, Emacs predates Linux by almost two decades and
> during that time it ran exclusively on what we now call non-free
> systems so there's no sacred free system purity baked into its
> DNA. Emacs being free software has traditionally meant that Emacs
> /itself/ is free and not that running it on a proprietary system made
> you a second class citizen.

The GNU project was created with the goal of eliminating non-free
operating systems.  It was once acceptable for Emacs to only run on
proprietary operating systems while no alternatives existed, but not
anymore.

For a long time, Apple also claimed the power to stop people from
writing programs that looked and worked even vaguely like a Macintosh.
During that period, the GNU project had a policy against supporting any
software on the Macintosh.

They have stopped that practice now, but I doubt many people have
forgiven them.

> You can say we deserve it for being insufficiently pure but do you
> really want to alienate your second largest user base? That attitude
> will not, I promise you, result in anyone abandoning macOS for Linux
> but it could very well result in disgusted users abandoning Emacs for
> something like VS Code. I'd hate that and I'm sure you would too.
>
> I'll accept whatever the community decides but I'm having a hard time
> understanding how this is even controversial.

This list isn't a place to discuss that policy, which has been in place
for a long time (nor was it ever subject to approval from a
"community".)  Features only present on macOS are discovered and deleted
from Emacs on a regular basis.  Recent examples are support for color
Emoji and tabbed windows.