Re: Release plans

[Michael Ekstrand]

Sean O'Rourke <address@hidden> writes:
> What if we included shared library loading in GNU Emacs to see if
> anyone tried to use it to abuse the GPL?  If so, we could remove
> it, and let the abusers develop a fork.  Since the shared library
> patch is already out there and there are no such forks, I doubt
> there would be a problem.

I also doubt it would be a problem.  Given the present development
climate, if someone is going to create a non-free "value-add" for a
development environment, I think that they are much more likely to do so
as an Eclipse plugin than as a non-free extension module for Emacs.  It
may not be a pleasant picture for widespread Emacs adoption, but it is
the state of things these days.

Thus, adding dynamic loading support would make Emacs more flexible for
its users, and I would be rather surprised if people actually abused
that feature to make non-free value-adds (other than the X/Refactory
folks possibly wanting to turn their product into an in-process dynamic
load).  The added possibilities are significant.  The libotr possibility
has been mentioned, and I could see cases for others.  Most immediately
coming to mind is an SQLite extension and accompanying nnsqlite Gnus
mail backend.

- Michael

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