Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-10-04 13:53]:
> > Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2020 13:07:19 +0300
> > From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> > Cc: philipk@posteo.net, rms@gnu.org, spacibba@aol.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org,
> >  dgutov@yandex.ru, jamtlu@gmail.com, eduardoochs@gmail.com
> > 
> > > I think we should let the user decide whether such risks are relevant
> > > in each and every case, and whether these risks, if they exist, are
> > > worth taking.
> > 
> > Universities are often off-line, something impossible for you to
> > imagine in the US, is very realistic in East Africa. Students may be
> > prevented having mobile phones, but not prevented having
> > computers.
> > 
> > In too many countries Internet is not easily available or accessible,
> > and is too often too expensive for even normal people to access it how
> > they want it.
> > 
> > > We explain these issues on the FSF site, so the considerations and
> > > the risks are well known.
> > 
> > They may be well published by FSF, but they cannot possibly be known
> > to general public as referencing and finding articles is not easy. It
> > is well known to smaller group of people who are fans of FSF and the
> > website. 
> > 
> > > We can explain this again in our documentation where relevant.  This
> > > way, we can consider users informed and capable of making their own
> > > decisions.
> > 
> > I have totally different impression. So many times I am explaining
> > friends and associates about this subject, I am talking face to face
> > to people I know, majority of people are not aware of any risks in
> > networking. That is greatest problem in our society right now. In my
> > opinion with technology development, society will become dumber 100%
> > within only next 5 years, so avoiding unsecure networking and making
> > people aware is necessity of today.
> 
> What exactly are you arguing for?  That we forcibly prevent users from
> using on-line access where it is available and reasonably fast, just
> because in some parts of the world Internet access is nonexistent, or
> because there are risks associated with using Internet?  Such
> enforcement makes no sense to me.  We should treat our users as
> responsible adults.

Noo.

I am suggesting to assume the planetary view point, not only western
developed view point.

No, I did not say to prevent users. I am suggesting to help users
download resources and use them offline.

We cannot say that in some parts of the world Internet access is not
as good, rather we shall say in the majority of the world.

I am saying that it is not optimum for Emacs and accessibility of
users to assume that users will be able to have those network
connections.

Please compare the Kiwix project: https://www.kiwix.org/en/ that
brings various Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Gutenberg and other resources to
those areas which are cut from Internet. There is reason for their
project, and it is of strong humanitarian character.

Also observe this statistics of Internet users:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users

Compare the number of Internet users to population on that table. In
Germany 86% of Internet users, while in Ethiopia 18.62% Internet
users, and country has population of 104 millions which greater than
Germany of 82 millions.

> We've already agreed to look for local resources first, and only fall
> back to remote servers if the local resources don't exist.  So I see
> no reason to continue arguing here if you are saying we should prefer
> local resources.  And if you are really saying that we should forcibly
> prevent remote access because our users don't know what they are
> doing, then it's so far away of everything I believe in that any
> argument will be futile.

No, I did not say, why force people not to use Internet? I am not that
crazy.