Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp

[David Kastrup]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> [[[ 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. ]]]
>
>   >   E.g., if it turns out that we need 99% of what is already in the
>   > AST, the argument for using it will be much more substantiated.
>
> For me, the concern is rather,
> what IS in the AST that we DON'T need.

A technical framework sculpted around making a particular limitation
unavoidable is likely to end up cumbersome.  It's definitely a good idea
to provide a mechanism providing only the information necessary for a
particular task.  But predefining those bunches of compiler information
a programmer is allowed to access or not is just putting a block on what
functionality programmers may be inspired to implement on top of GCC.

We don't want to end up with micromanaging restriction management of the
"I'm sorry Dave, but I am afraid I can't do that" kind.  GCC allows
compiling binaries that are proprietary: at some point of time we draw a
line of where we try exerting control over what people use tools for.

It is a greater problem for us to definitely block free applications
from being developed, either completely or by putting up prohibitely
high administrative or technical hurdles, than it is to accept the
possibility of non-free ones here.

-- 
David Kastrup