Re: Lightweight, C-only implementation of Emacs

[Amin Bandali <bandali@gnu.org>]

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Daniele Nicolodi writes:

> On 03/08/2020 15:52, Amin Bandali wrote:
[...]
>
> "I do not recommend its use" from an author abut the free software they
> wrote has many possible meanings. Among those: "use it but please don't
> bother me if it breaks and eats your data", "I know it has (serious)
> flaws that I don't want even think about", "I am very tired of
> supporting this piece of software, but I continue doing so for spirit of
> service toward those (hopefully few) that still depend on it. Please
> stop using it so I can enjoy doing something else".
>
> Of course no one can forbid you to use the software the author himself
> deprecated, but I think it would be nice to the author to follow their
> recommendation and look for alternatives, or pick up or share the burden
> of maintaining it.
>
> I don't know if any of this applies to Zile, but maybe inquiring,
> preferably in private, with the author and maintainer would be a good
> idea before putting it in a list of suggested software (I admit I
> haven't looked at the list debated here, thus I don't know if this applies).
>
> Cheers,
> Dan

Right, I'd generally agree.  I just wanted to clarify that we are not
under any obligation to (blindly) obey recommendations about using a
certain piece of free software, not in the way noloader makes it sound
like we must.  But of course it's often a good idea to consider these
recommendations, especially when they come from the author/maintainer of
the software in question.

In the specific case of Zile, having now looked through the issue
referenced earlier, <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?58880>, I see the
maintainer mentioning that "Zile still has users, so I maintain it for
them", which is great news :-).  Earlier they mention that they will not
be adding new features at the time being, but will continue to fix bugs.
Which is certainly not what I'd have guessed if I'd only read noloader's
messages of heavily questioning/discouraging any use of Zile.

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