Re: Unicode data removal from descr-text.el

[Richard Stallman]

    The code that I added to descr-txt.el to report Unicode properties has
    been commented out, saying:

I told people not to install this.

    I don't understand this.  I need to use that file to work on Unicode
    support, which was why I added the code, and code to interface with
    non-free programs hasn't been removed.  However, I don't understand
    why that file is considered non-free anyhow.

Because its license is not a free software license.  The fact that it
describes a standard makes no difference whatsoever.

We sometimes have code to interface with non-free programs, but I have
also often rejected such code.  My criteria are based on (1) how
popular the non-free program is, (2) how fundamental it is, and (3)
how much Emacs would need it.

This is not a matter of enabling people to do their access to
UnicodeData.txt through Emacs.  That might be ok.  But this is making
an Emacs feature depend on UnicodeData.txt.  That is definitely not
ok.

What we can do is transform that data into a different form and
release that under a free software license.  Then we could put code
into Emacs to access that transformed file.