From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Loading a package applies automatically to future sessions? Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:17:17 -0500 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1517538064 30830 195.159.176.226 (2 Feb 2018 02:21:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2018 02:21:04 +0000 (UTC) Cc: monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: George Plymale II Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Feb 02 03:20:59 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ehQyE-0007NN-Ib for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 02 Feb 2018 03:20:54 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55265 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ehR0F-0006tN-J4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:22:59 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:58884) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ehQxz-0005dr-4x for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:21:45 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ehQwv-0002I0-1Y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:20:39 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:59327) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ehQuj-000864-RA; Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:17:17 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1ehQuj-0002cD-77; Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:17:17 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from George Plymale II on Thu, 01 Feb 2018 16:36:13 -0500) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:222390 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] I'm responding to the points you raised so as to educate you and others about what we do and where we stand. You don't have to agree, but I want incorrect statements about us to be corrected. > All that you can do to enforce the GPL is sue people. On the contrary, most of our enforcement actions don't go as far as a court case. But we need to have that option as a last resort in order to win most of the time without suing. Isn't there enough > litigiousness in the world today? Yes, but that doesn't imply that any given lawsuit is wrong. For instance, look at the ACLU's lawsuits. The ACLU is constantly suing to overturn unjust laws and protect human rights. I support the ACLU because I support those lawsuits. The FSF's GPL enforcement is also a way of protecting human rights: specifically, every user's right to change and redistribute certain code. Moreover, there is no other fruit > borne by these restrictions No, it's the other way around. We use the GNU GPL to STOP those who redistribute our code from placing restrictions on subsequent users of it. than that won in a court battle. Usually we succeed without a court battle. However, if do go to court and win, that's still good -- it protects the users' freedom. > You > certainly aren't recruiting more developers in any projects which are > subject to this policy. Yes we are. There are several Emacs contributors that weren't involved a few years ago. However, Emacs would fail to give people freedom if we gave up on defending it. > Of course, all of this would probably not be necessary were it not for > the controversial nature of the GPL which leads to lawsuits a lot more > than Our defense of freedom is controversial, but we don't mind. The GPL sometimes leads to lawsuits because it defends users' freedom. If we gave up without a fight, we'd never have a fight, but that would not be better. other open-source licenses. This is the free software movement. We believe that nonfree software is an injustice because it denies users freedom. We don't just wish everyone had software freedom; we work and campaign and when necessary fight for it. Open source is a different idea; the term was coined specifically to reject our views. They disagree with us, and we disagree with them. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more explanation of the difference between free software and open source. See also https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler for Evgeny Morozov's article on the same point. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.