NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Yuchen Pei]

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Hello,

I notice that org-mac-link.el in org-contrib[1] interacts with 
many nonfree programs.  There is also a bullet point in the NonGNU 
ELPA readme[2], saying:

> The package must deliver its full functionality and convenience 
> on a
> completely free platform based on the GNU operating system (in
> practice, GNU/Linux), working exclusively with other free 
> software.
> Otherwise, it would act as an inducement to install nonfree 
> systems
> or other nonfree software, and that would work against our 
> cause.
> 
> However, as an exception it is ok for a package to provide, on 
> some
> non-GNU operating systems, features that the rest of Emacs (plus 
> GNU
> ELPA and NonGNU ELPA) already supports on GNU.
> 
> This is a moral issue.  See https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/,
> node System Portability.  The reason for this rule is that at no
> time, in no way, should a NonGNU ELPA package put users who 
> defend
> their freedom at a disadvantage compared with those who 
> surrender
> their freedom.

[1] 
https://git.sr.ht/~bzg/org-contrib/tree/master/item/lisp/org-mac-link.el
[2] 
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/nongnu.git/plain/README.org

If wonder if there is a contradiction here.

-- 
Best,
Yuchen

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Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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 notice that org-mac-link.el in org-contrib[1] interacts with 
  > many nonfree programs.

You may be right that this goes against GNU standards.
Thanks for reporting it.

Could you please describe the situation in more detail?
For instance, give the names of two or three of those nonfree programs
and describe how org-mac-link.el interacts with them?

Also, what is the status of org-contrib in relation to Emacs?
Is org-contrib part of GNU Emacs?  Is it in NonGNU ELPA?

Does anything in Emacs mention the existence of org-contrib
or say where to find it?  If so, could you show me the text
that mentions it, and say where that is found in Emacs?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Yuchen Pei]

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Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ 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 notice that org-mac-link.el in org-contrib[1] interacts 
>   > with 
>   > many nonfree programs.
>
> You may be right that this goes against GNU standards.
> Thanks for reporting it.
>
> Could you please describe the situation in more detail?
> For instance, give the names of two or three of those nonfree 
> programs
> and describe how org-mac-link.el interacts with them?

The nonfree programs include Finder (the default file manager on a 
Mac OS X), Google Chrome and Microsoft Outlook.

I haven't used the package, so I will just paste the description 
in the file which is probably better than my summary after reading 
the code myself:

> ;; This code allows you to grab either the current selected 
> items, or
> ;; the frontmost url in various mac appliations, and insert them 
> as
> ;; hyperlinks into the current org-mode document at point.

>
> Also, what is the status of org-contrib in relation to Emacs?
> Is org-contrib part of GNU Emacs?  Is it in NonGNU ELPA?

I believe it is just part of the NonGNU ELPA.

>
> Does anything in Emacs mention the existence of org-contrib
> or say where to find it?  If so, could you show me the text
> that mentions it, and say where that is found in Emacs?

I did a grep in the Emacs source tree as of commit 3502321403, and 
I could find a few places matching `org-contrib`. These mentions 
are mostly in urls, rather than the package itself:

> grep -inRH --color -A1 -B1 -E org-contrib . /dev/null
> ./doc/misc/org.org-16566-language-specific online documentation 
> at
> ./doc/misc/org.org:16567:https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/.
> ./doc/misc/org.org-16568-
> --
> ./doc/misc/org.org-17959-Additional documentation for some 
> languages is at
> ./doc/misc/org.org:17960:https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages.html.
> ./doc/misc/org.org-17961-
> --
> ./doc/misc/org.org-19647-If you are now browsing
> ./doc/misc/org.org:19648:=https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-protocol.html= 
> and find
> ./doc/misc/org.org-19649-a typo or have an idea about how to 
> enhance the documentation, simply
> --
> ./doc/misc/org.org-19912-directory for a list of contributed 
> files.  Worg page with more
> ./doc/misc/org.org:19913:information is at: 
> https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/.
> ./doc/misc/org.org-19914-
> --
> ./lisp/org/org.el-18391-  (let* ((org-dir 
> (org-find-library-dir "org"))
> ./lisp/org/org.el:18392:	 (contrib-dir (or 
> (org-find-library-dir "org-contribdir") org-dir))
> ./lisp/org/org.el-18393-	 (feature-re 
> "^\\(org\\|ob\\|ox\\)\\(-.*\\)?")
> --
> ./lisp/org/ob-lilypond.el-6-;; Keywords: babel language, 
> literate programming
> ./lisp/org/ob-lilypond.el:7:;; Homepage: 
> https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-lilypond.html
> ./lisp/org/ob-lilypond.el-8-
> --
> ./lisp/org/ob-lilypond.el-26-;; Installation, ob-lilypond 
> documentation, and examples are available at
> ./lisp/org/ob-lilypond.el:27:;; 
> https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-lilypond.html
> ./lisp/org/ob-lilypond.el-28-;;
> --
> ./lisp/org/ob-stan.el-41-;; For more information and usage 
> examples, visit
> ./lisp/org/ob-stan.el:42:;; 
> https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-stan.html
> ./lisp/org/ob-stan.el-43-;;
> --
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS-1877-
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS:1878:If you want to contribute to it, please see 
> [[https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contribute.html][how to 
> contribute]].
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS-1879-
> --
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS-2241-For more information and usage examples, 
> visit
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS:2242:https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-stan.html
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS-2243-
> --
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS-3643-    the top.  This table is called 
> "favtable".  See the documentation on
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS:3644: 
> [[https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-favtable.html][Worg]].
> ./etc/ORG-NEWS-3645-

> Grep finished with 11 matches found at Mon Aug 16 15:31:45

-- 
Best,
Yuchen

PGP Key: 47F9 D050 1E11 8879 9040  4941 2126 7E93 EF86 DFD0
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Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Yuchen Pei]

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Yuchen Pei <hi@ypei.me> writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> [[[ 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 notice that org-mac-link.el in org-contrib[1] interacts 
>>   > >
>> with   > many nonfree programs.
>>
>> You may be right that this goes against GNU standards.
>> Thanks for reporting it.
>>
>> Could you please describe the situation in more detail?
>> For instance, give the names of two or three of those nonfree
>> programs
>> and describe how org-mac-link.el interacts with them?
>
> The nonfree programs include Finder (the default file manager on 
> a Mac
> OS X), Google Chrome and Microsoft Outlook.

...and others - I was giving three examples here.

-- 
Best,
Yuchen

PGP Key: 47F9 D050 1E11 8879 9040  4941 2126 7E93 EF86 DFD0
           <https://ypei.me/assets/ypei-pubkey.txt>

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Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > The nonfree programs include Finder (the default file manager on a 
  > Mac OS X), Google Chrome and Microsoft Outlook.

The place where we state our standards about things like this
is the node References in the GNU Coding Standards.  How about reading
that, and thinking about what it says about this case?


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Yuchen Pei]

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Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ 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. ]]]
>
>   > The nonfree programs include Finder (the default file 
>   > manager on a 
>   > Mac OS X), Google Chrome and Microsoft Outlook.
>
> The place where we state our standards about things like this
> is the node References in the GNU Coding Standards.  How about 
> reading
> that, and thinking about what it says about this case?

Thanks, done.  It looks like this case is not a violation 
according to the standards refrence node 
<https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/References.html#References> 
because the nonfree programs are well known, people who don't use 
the nonfree programs are not likely to use them because of the 
package, and people who use the nonfree programs can use the free 
program that is the package.

-- 
Best,
Yuchen

PGP Key: 47F9 D050 1E11 8879 9040  4941 2126 7E93 EF86 DFD0
           <https://ypei.me/assets/ypei-pubkey.txt>

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Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > Thanks, done.  It looks like this case is not a violation 
  > according to the standards refrence node 
  > <https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/References.html#References> 
  > because the nonfree programs are well known, people who don't use 
  > the nonfree programs are not likely to use them because of the 
  > package,

That seems conclusive.

             and people who use the nonfree programs can use the free 
  > program that is the package.

I don't understand that last bit, but I think the conclusion is valid.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: NonGNU ELPA rules regarding nonfree software

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Yuchen Pei <hi@ypei.me>
> Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 15:41:00 +1000
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > Could you please describe the situation in more detail?
> > For instance, give the names of two or three of those nonfree 
> > programs
> > and describe how org-mac-link.el interacts with them?
> 
> The nonfree programs include Finder (the default file manager on a 
> Mac OS X), Google Chrome and Microsoft Outlook.

Those are integral parts of their operating systems, no?  I don't
think OS components count, otherwise we'd need to say that running on
any proprietary OS means recommending nonfree software.

> > ;; This code allows you to grab either the current selected items, or
> > ;; the frontmost url in various mac appliations, and insert them as
> > ;; hyperlinks into the current org-mode document at point.

FWIW, I see no problem with this: it's a general-purpose feature that
allows communications with any other application using (AFAIU) a
standard protocol.