From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: PT Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Making Emacs more newbie friendly Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:55:19 +0100 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: References: <874qf8d3cy.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111254812 27128 80.91.229.2 (19 Mar 2005 17:53:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:53:32 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 19 18:53:32 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCi8d-0006YQ-B8 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:53:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCiPM-0002iy-PW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:10:44 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!feeder.enertel.nl!nntpfeed-01.ops.asmr-01.energis-idc.net!feeder.xsnews.nl!aioe.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 67 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 9EGqVzZOPJF34TsvHVPUaQ.domitilla.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:53:10 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Opera M2/7.54 (Win32, build 3865) Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:129417 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org 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 X-MailScanner-To: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:24972 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:24972 On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:16:24 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: > PT writes: > >> On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:22:49 +0100, David Kastrup wrote= : >>>> >>>> The question is: is more people using Emacs a good thing at all? >>>> Or is it only an additional burden (more clueless people on the >>>> help forums, etc.)? >>> >>> You are trying to frame loaded questions. >> >> No, it was a sincere question. And if the answer is no, it's not a >> good thing then I'm okay with it. >> >>> What is "a good thing"? >>> More people using Emacs is not a worthwhile objective per se. If it= >>> were, we should replace Emacs by toiletpaper, and its user base woul= d >>> explode. A worthwhile objective for a developer is to have Emacs >>> become a more productive tool for his work. This is not unrelated t= o >>> the size of its user base, since developers usually tend to start ou= t >>> as users. >> >> Exactly. I don't know what resources are at the emacs developers' >> disposal (do they work on it on their free time? is some of them >> paid to work on Emacs?), > > Most work on Emacs in their free time. There have been times in the > past where a main developer got employed by the FSF for completing a > particular essential task or feature. > >> but if companies see more value in emacs then they might even >> sponsor developing some new features for them. > > Emacs has a rather strict copyright assignment policy to the FSF, and > it has a rather strict "if RMS does not think it a good idea right > now, it does not get in" policy. While there have been corporate or > at least institutional contributions (in particular MULE comes to > mind), this is by no means easy to do. [...] > Emacs has not shown itself to accommodate systematic corporate > involvement well. It will as far as I can see always be dependent on > dedicated individuals instead of corporate support, simply because you= > can't make a business plan involving Emacs development and timelines. I see. In that case there really is no obvious benefit of devoting = resources to make Emacs more newbie friendly. BTW, it seems Eclipse will fill this space instead of Emacs. It is = universal tool platform - an open extensible IDE for anything and nothin= g = in particular. -- = Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/