Re: New maintainer

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> That's true, but it is too weak; we are failing to communicate. The issue is
> not about what is "precluded" but rather about what actually works. The
> point is, when the feature is introduced in Emacs, it should really work
> with GCC as well as it does with any competitor to GCC.

Hi Richard,

Thank you for the clarification, the picture is becoming much clearer. I
really appreciate the time you've taken to reiterate these positions for the
millionth time.

There is one point I am having a hard time with. I'm feeling as though my
Emacs experience (as a user) is being sacrificed at someone else's altar.

The idea, if I understand it, is that you don't want Emacs' C++ support to
allow Clang to beat GCC, because then people would naturally choose Clang who
care more about getting things done, than they do about software freedom. In
effect, Emacs is being used to keep people within the free software agenda, by
making Clang no more appealing than GCC.

This troubles me. I can see that for you, the freedom idea is much more
important than the technical idea. You'd rather we stick with GCC until the
cows come home, so long as it leads to a freer world.

Meanwhile, there are those among us who don't share your ideals to the same
extent. We'd prefer an editor that lets us get things done faster, better,
leaving us with free time to... produce more free software.

I can't help but think that unless the FSF has more to offer than its ideals,
its technical decisions are going to render it obsolete. Progress waits for no
man, and the world is changing more and more rapidly. There is a reason Clang
is eating GCC's lunch: because the needs of a larger community demand a better
free compiler.

Emacs is still a fantastic editor, but it's old and its age is showing. If we
remain competitive, it could stay awesome for another 30 years; but if we
avoid progress to further non-technical agendas, I think it will drive people
AWAY from the GNU project, not bind them more tightly to it.

John