Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-10-04 10:04]:
> > From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> > Cc: philipk@posteo.net, eduardoochs@gmail.com, spacibba@aol.com,
> >     emacs-devel@gnu.org, dgutov@yandex.ru, jamtlu@gmail.com
> > Date: Sat, 03 Oct 2020 23:38:51 -0400
> > 
> > There are other reasons why it is bad to adopt "talk to a server" as
> > your default way to do something, and for bad the community to adopt
> > "talk to a server" as its default recommendation and practice.
> > 
> > Getting an answer over the network can take time.
> > 
> > It can cost you money, in some circumstances.
> > 
> > It can fail, if the network is having a problem.
> > 
> > It can result in tracking your movements, if it requires you to
> > activate a network connection that identifies and tracks you.
> > 
> > It can be impossible, if you don't have a connection
> > at that time or place.
> 
> 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.