Re: Emacs vista build failures

[Bastien <bzg@altern.org>]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> "Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Richard M Stallman wrote:
>>>     And once again: If this did not work easily on w32 too it might
>>> stop     people from using it.
>>>
>>> We must reject any presumption that free programs should work on
>>> Windows.
>>
>> Yes, but that is a different thing. IF making free programs working on
>> windows helps promote GNU/Linux (or Herd) is not that good?
>
> Our first goal is to have a free operating system.  This benefits
> everybody since anybody is free to use that as long as his hardware
> supports it.  So if people work on Windows software who would otherwise
> work on improving a free system, everybody loses, while only the users
> of the non-free operating system gain.
>
> If people who work only on proprietary systems otherwise make free
> software work on those systems, nobody loses.
>
> In short, we should not lose our focus.  Winning people to free software
> through Emacs on Windows can't work if the free systems become worse
> because of the redirection of effort.  If we want to win them over to
> free systems, we should make the free systems as good as we can, not the
> unfree ones.

Very well said.

But proprietary systems are not only tools, they are also a media: while
running on such platforms, free softwares do advertize the free software
movement beyond free systems.

While it's that true you cannot invest too much in communication, it's
also important to recognize that running free software on a proprietary
system is also useful - otherwise you will just strenghten a feeling of
guilt in people working for that purpose!

Of course, the fact that a computer is both a tool and a media tends to
limit the scope of this argument, but maybe it comes close to Lennart's
(and others') point.

-- 
Bastien