Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 16.10.2020 23:03, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> [2020-10-16 22:37]:
> > > devastating for a repository that is supposed to push free software,
> > > in other words, repository is hypocritical.
> >
> > No, it's supposed to _publish_ free software.
>
> Alright, I just think of policies.

As do I.

> Imagine if free software repository would publish only software that
> wraps around proprietary software, would that be free? So it is matter
> of policy.

If it had a policy to only publish wrappers for proprietary software, it 
would be a "repository for wrappers of proprietary software".

But a repository which has a policy to only publish free software, is a 
repository for free software.

> For same reaso Debian GNU/Linux cannot be said to be free, at many
> pages they guide users to include non-free software, unspoken from
> Archlinux or other distributions.

I don't think that's how it works. If the software is free, we call it free.

> > > Would it be only hypocritical without influencing users, fine, but it
> > > does influence thousands of users and is promoting the download number
> > > of software that guides users to non-free software, so that is how it
> > > becomes not ethical.
> >
> > Some time ago I read an essay about infighting in the political left
> > community. How a lot of members choose to find and attack progressively
> > personal character faults in their fellow activists, instead of working
> > together and presenting a united front against the capitalist oppressors.
> >
> > You can draw an easy parallel to the software community and the struggle vs
> > proprietary software.
>
> That question is best answered here:
> https://github.com/melpa/melpa/issues/7185

Good example of infighting. Not an answer.

It would be a lot more polite to include your actual name in the account 
description, by the way. Calling yourself "GNU Support" looks like an 
overreach.

> So that is request to remove those packages and to make a policy not
> to include such, that is best way to raise the issue and see if we are
> truly together in free software promotion.

"No true Scotsman"

> > But it doesn't work as well if the survey is biased from the outset.
>
> But survey is "biased" (opinionated) from beginning, it was not published on
> emacs-devel initially, it was published on Reddit initially and I am

That doesn't necessarily make it biased. That argument is weak.

> sure there are reasons for initiator for the survey, those reasons may
> be that whay you call biased, I call it opinions, but not necessarily
> unjust opinions (biased).

Removing a known popular option from the answers makes a survey biased.

> It is better to say opinionated.

Are we reinventing English words now?