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Re: New maintainer


From: Tassilo Horn
Subject: Re: New maintainer
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 2015 08:56:13 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.130014 (Ma Gnus v0.14) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux)

address@hidden (Jens K. Loewe) writes:

>> The whole point of GNU is the non-acceptance of software denying the
>> users the fundamental software freedoms.
>
> So GNU does not stand *for* something but *against* something? GNU's
> whole point is not to be better than others but to point out that
> others are worse? That reminds me of a kindergarten.

The mission of GNU is to give users the ability to do all their
computing needs with software that respects their freedom.  Raising
awareness that software has also non-technical aspects is also a point
of that.

> Furthermore, shouldn't it be the right of a free user to use a
> non-free system at his own will?  I don't use GNU for the sole reason
> that I get my things done fast on other platforms, but I solve a lot
> of problems with FLOSS software even on closed platforms.  Am I a bad
> guy now?

Obviously not.  A user should have the ultimate freedom to use whatever
he prefers, and of course, we advocate for making users aware of freedom
being an important factor.  But from the point of view of GNU, when the
possibilities he can choose from don't include a free alternative,
that's an unacceptable situation where GNU must take action.  That could
mean providing a free alternative or advocating against that thing in
case there cannot be a free alternative (e.g., for DRM there cannot be a
free alternative).

> However, it seems that the Emacs product is less important than the
> Emacs "philosophy" here.

It's actually very simple: there won't be a technical feature which
relies on or works best with proprietary components because that would
encourage users to give up some of their freedom for technical merits.

Bye,
Tassilo



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