Re: My resignation from Emacs development

[Andrea Corallo <acorallo@gnu.org>]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> Hello, Emacs.
>
> I'm resigning my position as Emacs contributor.
>
> The immediate reason is that, as maintainer of CC Mode, CC Mode's
> symbols, its names, were taken by Emacs and used for other purposes
> without informing me, much less consulting me.  That makes my position as
> CC Mode maintainer here untenable.
>
> Eli Zaretskii and I have had extensive discussions, both in public and in
> private email, over the last week or so, but we have been unable to reach
> any satisfactory compromise solution.
>
> Names are important.  They have power.  To take somebody's/somthing's
> name and misuse it is an exercise of aggression.  Try using "Emacs" or
> even "free software" to mean something different, and see just how
> quickly you would hear back from Richard Stallman.  This misuse of CC
> Mode's "trademarks", the symbols `c-mode', `c++-mode', and perhaps
> `c-or-c++-mode', is just such an act of aggression.
>
> These symbols have been appropriated by Emacs to mean "the current
> preferred mode for C", etc., rather than C Mode, C++ Mode etc.  In
> certain circumstances, in particular, in Local Variables: sections and
> auto-mode-alist, there is now no longer any way unambiguously to specify
> C Mode or C++ Mode.  Up till recently ("\\.myc\\'" . c-mode) in
> auto-mode-alist meant C Mode, and would have had the effect of
> auto-loading CC Mode, if needed, and running C Mode.
>
> The change took place in the commit for bug#69191 "New var
> `major-mode-remap-defaults`, for packages".  It sounds so innocent, but
> is an extremely bad solution for whatever problem (unspecified in the
> commit message) it was intended to solve.  A major mode using it changes
> the interfaces of other libraries in an uncontrolled way.  This is not
> good software engineering.
>
> This bug was raised and committed by Stefan Monnier.  Despite the fact
> that the bug fix directly impinged upon CC Mode, and there was even a
> change to cc-mode.el in the patch, he failed even to inform me.  The only
> two modes substantially affected by this change were ruby-mode and CC
> Mode, and it is clear that Dmitry Gutov, maintainer of ruby-mode, was
> aware of the change.  Had I known of this proposal, I would certainly
> have objected to it.  Stefan is intelligent enough to have realised this,
> and maybe his avoidance of open discussion was motivated by this.
>
> Bug#69191 was a big change.  In Emacs, we have a convention whereby big
> changes are discussed openly on emacs-devel and a consensus reached
> before the change is made.  Stefan Monnier has regularly violated this
> convention, possibly believing that his ideas for Emacs are so good as to
> be beyond question.  Any attempt to question his ideas is likely to be
> met by evasive non-answers, if any response at all is forthcoming.  I
> could give several paragraphs worth of justification for these
> assertions, but I think everybody here knows I am right.
>
> In Emacs there is also a convention of treating eachother with respect on
> the mailing lists.  Sadly this convention is superficial, and seems only
> to mean things like not using swear words.  The truly contemptuous
> communication style, this evasive non-answering, seems to be regarded as
> acceptable.  I suggest that this change.
>
> Stefan's habit of making big changes in Emacs without seeking consensus
> is at the heart of why I am resigning.  These changes have caused Emacs a
> lot of damage over the years and have caused other contributors,
> including me, extra work and difficulty.  Stefan is a Jekyll-and-Hyde
> character.  On the one hand, he's a very capable hacker, and is always
> ready to help others with technical questions.  On the other hand, as
> mentioned, he is contemptuous of the Emacs conventions, and unlike
> Richard and Eli, does not have the gift of knowing what the Right Thing
> is.
>
> I strongly recommend that Stefan somehow be reigned in and required to
> observe Emacs's conventions about open discussion and courteous
> communication.  As I mentioned, his violations of these are at the core
> of why I feel unable to continue contributing to Emacs.
>
> I will shortly be unsubscribing from emacs-devel.  I intend to carry on
> maintaining stand alone CC Mode, and I'm prepared to deal with any CC
> Mode issues which arise in Emacs.  Please post these to
> bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
>
> It just remains to say that my respect for Eli and the other maintainers
> remains undiminished, and that I wish all of them and the Emacs project
> all success in the future.
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Hi Alan,

I don't have much to add as I share all Eli's and Stefan's opinions
here.

I as well don't agree with your critic of S.M. actions, but more
importantly, please assume always good faith from other Emacs developers
(as suggested here [1]).  Our goal here of just making a better Emacs,
this is shared by every one, and would be a pity to loose your
contribution.

Please reconsider your position, sometimes stress and other factors can
tweak our conclusion momentary, but let's not forget our goals.

Thanks

  Andrea

[1] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html>