Re: New maintainer

[Jens K. Loewe]

David Kastrup schrob am 04. Okt. 2015 um 23:34 Uhr dies:

> Since there enough users who do not care one bit, you don't get one
> without the other.  The playfield is tilted.

I guess the FSF is in a position where they can shuffle the playfield if
they'd want to.

> Oh definitely.  And the GPL is restricting software to be used only as
> a building piece for free software.  That's its sole point.

So the actual point of this was that a GNU Emacs maintainer has to
enforce software restrictions to users? That sounds wrong.

> Look, Windows 10 contains keyloggers that record any key combinations of
> you and send them to Redmond to "make your computing experience more
> enjoyable".

You might have missed it, but Windows 10 *actually asks you* if you want
to enable this feature during the first set-up steps, so it's basically
opt-in. People who propagate the right to choose should appreciate this
IMO.

> People for whom such a system is a serious consideration do not care
> about freedom one bit.

This is not valid. I like my freedom, I use quite a couple of different
operating systems, both free and non-free. The free ones are mostly used
for technical reasons indeed, but I still do most of my work on
Windows. Not because Windows was free or something, but because I can
get my things done with it. Switching to another main OS would force me
to develop an entirely new workflow - which would decrease my
productivity.

I still don't think I don't care about freedom. I might repeat myself: I
am an active contributor to and user of some FLOSS projects (including
some you might know), I just happen to have the /perfect/ workflow on
Windows. Don't condemn me for wishing to use a tool (my computer) as a
tool and not as a church.

> If you can read through all that and wholeheartedly state "I agree",
> then we don't have anything to offer, really.

How many people have read Canonical's terms of service in the first
place?

> The best vegetarian dinner is a sideplate to a juicy steak, do you
> agree?

I like steak, so no complaints on this point... ;-)

> The issue here was actually MacOSX, resulting in a reminder of the rule
> that no functionality is to be introduced for non-free operating systems
> that is not available for GNU/Linux.

Which is a pretty OK rule, I just wanted you to consider that having a
"broken by design" Windows or OSX version of a GNU tool will rather make
people drop the tool than their operating system.

>> Which is OK as long as it does not have a major influence in what he
>> does IMO.
>
> In some respects, it will.

Which would be those respects?

> That makes it harder to find a person for
> what amounts to an unpaid position since it means that the only person
> doing such a job will have strong reasons of his own.

The reason I suggested myself was that I wanted to contribute something
to GNU Emacs because I love it and its community and I wish that I can
give you something back. I guess that reason is strong enough and not in
conflict with anything?

Regards.

JKL


-- 
I could contain traces of nuts.