From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.tangents Subject: Re: [ELPA] New package: repology.el Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2021 12:22:38 -0500 Message-ID: References: <6193374b-a60d-ba82-91b5-afdede18e3bb@yandex.ru> <72871d3a-3b6a-d6fd-01cc-4248f817923c@yandex.ru> <801f93f3-8c1f-5f5f-6351-e1169bc309ae@yandex.ru> <83k0sp27f6.fsf@gnu.org> <23f3f74f-c3d3-ec74-f1da-d0416d026c0d@yandex.ru> <83sg7bkiz6.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="1284"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-tangents@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, bugs@gnu.support, ulm@gentoo.org, arthur.miller@live.com, dgutov@yandex.ru To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-tangents-bounces+get-emacs-tangents=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Jan 08 18:23:19 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: get-emacs-tangents@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kxvTp-0000AX-5w for get-emacs-tangents@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 08 Jan 2021 18:23:17 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:32788 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kxvTo-0005Kf-7g for get-emacs-tangents@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 08 Jan 2021 12:23:16 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:57972) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kxvTF-0005JQ-GV for emacs-tangents@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Jan 2021 12:22:42 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:41242) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kxvTE-0000uy-7n; Fri, 08 Jan 2021 12:22:40 -0500 Original-Received: from ams by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1kxvTC-0006Yz-FC; Fri, 08 Jan 2021 12:22:38 -0500 In-Reply-To: <83sg7bkiz6.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Eli Zaretskii on Fri, 08 Jan 2021 09:04:13 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-tangents@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs news and miscellaneous discussions outside the scope of other Emacs mailing lists List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-tangents-bounces+get-emacs-tangents=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-tangents" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.tangents:524 Archived-At: > From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" > Cc: eliz@gnu.org, bugs@gnu.support, arthur.miller@live.com, > rms@gnu.org, ulm@gentoo.org, emacs-tangents@gnu.org > Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2021 16:07:13 -0500 > > > You are exagerating. Nobody is saying don't do research, I'm quite > > sure you are capable of finding that information on your own. But it > > is a different thing for GNU do provide that information for you. > > But GNU software shouldn't help me in research? > > In the research of non-free software, obviously no. And that is a serious problem, because GNU maintainers need to do that quite frequently, as part of their job they do for GNU. As a GNU maintainer you can use other venues to find that information, again nobody is stopping _you_. But the GNU _project_ or GNU _software_ is not there to help you find non-free software. I do not understand what is so confusing here, how you as a person (in the capacity of a mainainter or not) wish to figure out stuff and what the GNU project links to are two entierly orthogonal issues. Its like asking why the GNU project doesn't provide information about finding good polka candy recipies, its outside the scope of the project (ignoring the issue that non-free software being immoral and unethical). And other software users and professionals are likely to do that as well, in order to study software algorithms and implementations. Let me remind you that (AFAIK) one of the main reasons for starting GNU was the inability to share ideas about software design and implementation, due to commercial entities' enforcement of a system where showing the code was prohibited. It would be ironic if the GNU project prevented its followers from exercising the same freedom, by denying us the information about where to find that source code to begin with. It doesn't prevent anyone from doing any kind of research, it is just not the place for GNU to help you in doing said research. There have been lists (e.g., the high priority list) of functionality which is lacking on free operating systems -- sometimes even mentioning very well known non-free software we (the project) wishes to replace. But when the program is unknown, one can simply list the features one wishes a program to have and not give it the extra promotion. Since if we say that a program has no free software counter part, it would be quite normal for someone to go decide that they will install the non-free program until such a day. And that would be working against the goal.