Re: [PATCH] Remove special requirement to disable startup message.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Mark Oteiza <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2015 17:51:03 -0500
> 
> After seeing a commentary on the variable here:
> 
> http://emacshorrors.com/posts/advertising-your-freedom.html
> 
> and reading bug#13208 and bug#12370, I am inclined to change this
> behavior. Not only is the checking mechanism in
> `display-startup-echo-area-message' naïve and error-prone (see
> bug#13208), but it does nothing to stop the site from disabling the
> message, which is the only tangible justification (found in bug#12730)
> for the special treatment to exist. It is trivial for site-start.el,
> default.el, or init.el to contain
> 
>   (defun display-startup-echo-area-message () nil)
> 
> or similar to disable the message for all users (example from bug#13208).

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with the emacshorrors commentary, and I
don't think we should make disabling this startup message site-wide so
easy.  The discussion in bug#12370 shows I'm not the only one.

(Splash screen is different: it shows information useful to first-time
Emacs users, whereas the echo-area message is about the GNU system and
the software freedom.)

I appreciate your efforts in producing a patch for review, but I'd
rather encourage development in the other direction:

  . make sure display-startup-echo-area-message cannot be so easily
    redefined or advised (up to some practical limit)

  . allow the value to be a list of strings, each one a user name, and
    prevent the echo-area message from being displayed if the user
    name is one of these strings -- this should take care of the use
    case in bug#12370

Would you like to work on these enhancements?

Thanks.