From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: line-move-visual Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:57:01 -0700 Message-ID: References: <87pr07qjio.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <878w6vq7ew.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <871vcmhq79.fsf@wivenhoe.ul.ie> <580d5f23-e251-483f-9752-7e77b1ca2fb7@40g2000pry.googlegroups.com> <2a7dc148-e2cc-4681-9d8c-ccd1140aa6d7@j36g2000prj.googlegroups.com> <089883ee-0a63-4cb4-a0ec-d2fe4e71cc03@y18g2000prn.googlegroups.com> <87wruco5yq.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87wrubfd8p.fsf@rapttech.com.au> <848w6ndwn0.fsf@cs.bham.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291944129 2224 80.91.229.12 (10 Dec 2010 01:22:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 01:22:09 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 10 02:22:06 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQrgQ-0006Ye-4v for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Dec 2010 02:22:02 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:46559 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQrgP-0002fo-Dv for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:22:01 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news1.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.posted.isomediainc!news.posted.isomediainc.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:57:02 -0500 Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp In-Reply-To: <848w6ndwn0.fsf@cs.bham.ac.uk> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (OSX 1167 2008-08-23) Original-Lines: 77 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.124.149.116 Original-X-Trace: sv3-5JK6V6JIZ9I0A0raTbliR426yCMYxj5OV5L4qSniV6qxAeNsERlVrKkE/DVB+gum7RyjL2fh6A8oAZf!LYWnR8x8RKBmv+neCDEaCLxnjuYGvHDjuR0+baMeNlC3v1+IArD36ikqF52W/Blf2HQePOmyD8mi!uU4rGHKE34VC/S5/U8qE1hohbRjM X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:178804 comp.emacs:99977 comp.lang.lisp:288909 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:09:16 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:77124 Archived-At: On Thu, 10 Jun 2010, Uday S Reddy posted: > A third suggestion is that we should start thinking of Emacs as > mission-critical software. It amazes me that anyone would think otherwise. > It is really platform on which a > number of critical services are delivered, for development of projects > or for running of teams and organizations. A lot rides on it and any > changes that potentially cause corruption of files or data can be quite > serious. As the kids say, "well, duh!" This discussion is rapidly leading to "is free software suitable as mission-critical software?". Some people would be more comfortable is the answer is "no". Then they don't have to deal with the responsibility of mission-critical software. > Finally, and I might be a bit OTT here, I think we should think of free > software as community-owned software. It is not developer-owned > software (despite the aberration caused by the existence of FSF as a > copyright-owner). The notion of "community-owned software" works as ideology, but not as reality. If emacs was really community-owned software, I as a community member could revert the change in the official distribution sources. And then there could be revert wars ala Wikipedia. That existed once upon a time in the mid-1970s, at MIT (the ITS systems) and elsewhere. It didn't end well. The dichotomy between "the cathedral and the bazaar" that ESR postulated doesn't really exist. The full-fledged bazaar option doesn't scale and never actually happened. It's just two types of cathedrals, one run by a pope and the other run by a board of laymen. But even the laymen become power-corrupted. > Free software isn't > "free-to-fork" software, even though the right to fork exists as a last > resort and as a foundation for everything else. If that right needs to > be exercised, it is a signal that the community-ownership of the > software has broken down and that is not good for any of us. That is certainly true. Again, BSD serves as an example. Another sign of a process breakdown is when a developer's answer to user complaints about changes in a new version is "so just run the old version". The need to revert to an old version means that the new version is broken. The corrolary to this is that the standard developer's answer to complaints about bugs in an old version is "upgrade to the new version". This only works if the upgrade is a viable option. Developers can't have it both ways. If they create a new version that is unacceptable to some portion of the user community, they they have effectively forked the software. Responsible developers figure this out after a while. It takes maturity. Generally, they want their users to be using one, and only one, version; and they do what is necessary to ensure that there are no barriers to upgrade. Since user interface surprise is a barrier to upgrade, they make sure there aren't any such surprises. In the real world, people get fired for inflicting surprises in mission-critical software. -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.