Conversation
Notices
-
Embed this notice
mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:18 JST mia @dragestil @louis @cmeier @amszmidt @galdor
This is why I just use a Mac. They just work.-
Embed this notice
dragestil (dragestil@hostux.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:19 JST dragestil @louis @cmeier @amszmidt @galdor > Same line of argument, still against freedom rule 0.
Sorry but this is simply not true. Emacs is free software, abiding by all 4 freedoms. You can patch it to use any nonfree extensions you like.
-
Embed this notice
Louis (louis@emacs.ch)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:21 JST Louis @dragestil @cmeier @amszmidt @galdor Same line of argument, still against freedom rule 0. What you say is that when it is in the interest of GNU/Emacs (publicity) it is ok to let it run in a user-harming environment, but when it is about user interests, it is not ok.
That logic really escapes my understanding of free software. There is literally no other GNU component that blocks the user from installing non-free extensions by design.
-
Embed this notice
dragestil (dragestil@hostux.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:22 JST dragestil @louis @cmeier @amszmidt @galdor > With this line of argument Emacs shouldn't even run on macOS or Windows.
i think it is a matter of strategy. Having emacs available on windows/Mac increase the free software adoption. Allowing non free extensions in a otherwise free environment harms user freedom.
-
Embed this notice
Louis (louis@emacs.ch)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:24 JST Louis @cmeier @amszmidt @galdor With this line of argument Emacs shouldn't even run on macOS or Windows. Nor should it be allowed to write proprietary software (or books) with it.
I always thought that Free Software is all about freedom. According to GNU, it's rule 0: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose". What happens here is pure paternalism. Clearly an overstepping of boundaries by the responsible people in the Emacs Dev Team.
-
Embed this notice
cmeier (cmeier@hostux.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:31 JST cmeier @amszmidt @galdor > we do not want our software to be used to subjugate users, e.g., by loading non-free extensions...
Should it really be up to #emacs to decide what a user can or cannot easily load? IIRC, Stallman use to rail about "fascist limits" (by which he meant things like arbitrary line lengths) and this strikes me as a kind of fascist limit imposed by free software which says "we won't make it easy to work with $X just because we don't like $X's license."
-
Embed this notice
Alfred M. Szmidt (amszmidt@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:33 JST Alfred M. Szmidt @cmeier There is really nothing inconsistent about it, GNU develops Emacs, and we do not want our software to be used to subjugate users, e.g., by loading non-free extensions which this is about, and would working against our own goals.
Nobody is stopping @galdor from making a patch, the GNU Emacs maintainers don't want it though... Simple as that.
-
Embed this notice
cmeier (cmeier@hostux.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:34 JST cmeier @galdor > Trying to stop users from doing something through usage restrictions in free software is as ineffective as pushing on an object through a long, straight, soft piece of cooked spaghetti.
-- Richard Stallman
Although he was speaking about license restrictions, the statement could as easily be applied to software that will only import an allowed list of extensions. Seems oddly inconsistent if #emacs does this with sqlite extensions.
-
Embed this notice
Nicolas Martyanoff (galdor@emacs.ch)'s status on Thursday, 09-Nov-2023 07:03:35 JST Nicolas Martyanoff I just learned today that the builtin sqlite #Emacs module cannot load arbitrary SQLite extensions: there is a short list of allowed extensions, and you cannot work around it without patching Emacs.
I really hope Emacs is one day freed from the FSF, this is getting embarassing.
-
Embed this notice