Re: GOP-PROP 2-1: LilyPond is part of GNU

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:22:26PM +0200, Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
> On 2012-06-20 05:51, Graham Percival wrote:
> >>>  "do not recommend any non-Free programs"
> >>>  >  We have a list of non-free ones on the easier editing page
> >>- e.g.
> >>>  Noteworthy and my converter.  However, it seems daft to me to remove
> >>>  these.  I would think for the long list we could disclaim with
> >>>  "we're not recommending these, but noting that they exist".
> >Thanks, that seems reasonable.
> 
> Actually, to me there is a big difference between "recommending" a
> program for use and listing alternatives that are compatible (which
> is the case for the applications in question). I actually don't like
> the phrasing, because I understand "we're not recommending these" as
> a nice formulation of "We strongly discourage you from using these".

Sorry, I don't think we can even have a "we're not recommending
these, but noting that they exist" list.  I've discovered the GNU
coding standards, and they're pretty clear:

"A GNU program should not recommend, promote, or grant legitimacy
to the use of any non-free program. Proprietary software is a
social and ethical problem, and our aim is to put an end to that
problem. We can’t stop some people from writing proprietary
programs, or stop other people from using them, but we can and
should refuse to advertise them to new potential customers, or to
give the public the idea that their existence is ethical."
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/References.html

Taking the spirit of that paragraph (as well as other language in
that section), I don't think we can list such software at all.

- Graham