Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

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

  > Incidentally, if Melpa agrees to your request to remove all packages
  > wrapping around proprietary software, it will be a matter of days
  > before such a repository appears.

To move all the recommendations of nonfree software
OUT of Melpa, and into some other obscure new repository,
would be a great step forward!  It would eliminate one
of the reasons why currently we must not inform people about Melpa.

If Melpa then were to eliminates the other reason, reported here
today, that it requires use of nonfree software to contribute
packages, and commits to stay on this path, that could make it
possible for us to recommend Melpa!  That would be a big
change for the better.

  > And yes, it would be free, in my opinion. Because users are free to
  > use Emacs in whichever way they want, including in workflows involving
  > non-free software.

Indeed they are, but you've changed to a different question.


  > > 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.

  > This is, again, a matter of opinion.

You're entitled to your opinion, but this list is for discussing what
to do in the GNU Project.  In the GNU Project, this question is a
matter of stated policy.

In https://gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html,
our criteria say this is not acceptable.  That is why we classify
Debian as nonfree in https://gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)