Re: Futile bug reports?

[Richard Stallman]

    I think the above stated policy is misguided - Instead of shunning such
    books as (?)idealogically unwanted, you could embrace them as
    _enhancements_ to free software.  This would help free software, such as
    emacs, to get accepted by more people than otherwise would.  This is
    surely in accordance with the aims of the FSF.

Everything you have written suggests that you have misunderstood what
our aims are.  We write free software and free documentation for a
specific reason: to spread freedom.

All else being equal, we want GNU software to be more popular, so it
can give freedom to more people.  But we have to be careful what means
we use to achieve that intermediate goal of popularity.  To achieve it
by sacrificing freedom would be self-defeating.  It would be winning
the battle by losing the war.

We have to practice what we stand for, and therefore we have
established the policy that people should not use our facilities
(including mailing lists) to promote the use of non-free software.

You may disagree with our views; in a free society, you are entitled
to make up your own mind.  If you want to argue about these issues,
please use the newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss, not this list.

In the mean time, please do not mention specific non-free
documentation (or software) on GNU mailing lists.