From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard M Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs vista build failures Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:54:45 -0400 Message-ID: References: <36366a980807101702r5677d096g8e62ef5b3e278868@mail.gmail.com> <4eb0089f0807111217m66d6cf4el777c197c107ce034@mail.gmail.com> <87skug6tq5.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <4eb0089f0807111345h13eccdds9b2cf43370b94074@mail.gmail.com> <4eb0089f0807121340x5e26f6dbve03ef50b238f3a3a@mail.gmail.com> <87k5fph5rh.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <20080713214648.GB1076@muc.de> <20080714195651.GF3445@muc.de> <487C5FA3.4070603@emf.net> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1216335375 13504 80.91.229.12 (17 Jul 2008 22:56:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:56:15 +0000 (UTC) Cc: acm@muc.de, drobinow@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Thomas Lord Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 18 00:57:03 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KJcPG-0007Kw-1F for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:57:02 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:36945 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KJcOM-00044I-Lf for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:56:06 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KJcNj-0003op-Dj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:55:27 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KJcNh-0003nk-JJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:55:26 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=57641 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KJcNh-0003ng-Ci for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:55:25 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:56398) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KJcNh-0006dM-5u for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:55:25 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1KJcN3-0001g1-PZ; Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:54:45 -0400 In-reply-to: <487C5FA3.4070603@emf.net> (message from Thomas Lord on Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:28:19 -0700) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:100904 Archived-At: It is a failure of the GNU project and of the free software movement that there is so much emphasis on monolithic distributions and binary package distributions. It is a failure of the GNU project and the free software movement that one so often encounters distros that offer to not install source trees and even offer to not install development environments. The words "it is a failure of" are ambiguous. They could literally mean "it is a goal we have not achieved", but they also suggest placing the blame for this on us. Certainly these are goals we have not achieved, but if others do not follow our recommendations, that's their decision, not ours. When I designed the GNU specs for configuring and building source packages, I hoped that free software developers generally would adopt them, but they did not. I tried at one point to convince XFree86 to support the GNU configuration spec. I even found a volunteer to implement that as a wrapper around their existing configuration mechanism. But they did not consider such compatibility very important, and I don't think they installed this wrapper. To convince free software projects generally to adopt this spec would require more pressure from the community in general. It is easy to call names (such as calling the GNU Coding Standards "anemic"), but given that many programs' developers won't even implement those, I doubt we would obtain much compliance for stricter ones.