Re: [AUCTeX-devel] Hello and a question about missing AUCTeX features

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-12, at 17:30, Mosè Giordano <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi Marcin!
>
> 2015-04-12 17:13 GMT+02:00 Marcin Borkowski <address@hidden>:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I have just subscribed to this list, so I'd like to say hello and thanks
>> for AUCTeX!
>>
>> I'm a long time TeX user (about 20 years) and Emacs user (about 15
>> years).  I've been using AUCTeX since I started using Emacs itself.
>>
>> However, there are quite a few things missing in AUCTeX which I'd like
>> to have.  One is movement by TeX tokens, another one is matching
>> \bigl..\bigr and friends, and there are more.
>
> With "matching \bigl..\bigr" do you mean something like
> `show-paren-mode' or auto insertion of the matching parenthesis?  We
> have the last feature since 11.88, but you're probably already ware of
> it.

Wow, I didn't know that - but anyway, I meant something like
show-paren-mode, and - more importantly - intelligent changing (both
sides) e.g. between \bigl..\bigr, \Bigl..\Bigr etc.

>> I have a good knowledge of (La)TeX, Emacs and Elisp, and I'd like to
>> help implementing these things (and in general, working on AUCTeX).
>> I don't have very much spare time, but I can definitely spend a few
>> hours a week on AUCTeX.
>>
>> What should I do to help?
>
> That would be great!  As you may know, AUCTeX is a GNU project and as
> such we require contributors to assign copyright to FSF.  If you are
> willing to do so and release your contributions under the terms of
> GPLv3, then fill this form

Oh.  This probably settles the thing.  I had some hope that AUCTeX is
outside the scope of this FSF-papers insanity.  I don't have those
papers signed, and unless there is some serious change (either in FSF,
or in my ethical standpoint - either one is possible, but not very
likely), I'm afraid I cannot sign them.

>     
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/tree/doc/Copyright/request-assign.future
>
> and follow the instructions in the header.  Keep in mind an assignment
> for the AUCTeX package covers only contributions to AUCTeX, but
> assignment for the Emacs package covers both Emacs and AUCTeX (and any
> other package included in GNU Elpa repository).
>
> After this, just submit to this mailing list your patches against the
> current git version and we will discuss about them ;-)

Now I'm wondering.  Technically, I /could/ fork AUCTeX, but this does
not seem to make sense.  Probably the best thing I can do now is to
develop my library, built on top of AUCTeX, to implement things I'd like
to have.  Of course, I /will/ share my code on the Internet, and I'll
probably release it on some kind of open-source (or even free-as-in-FSF)
license.

Another, technical question is: assuming that I develop some
AUCTeX-based utilities (=elisp functions), does it make sense to write
about them here?  I do not want to give an impression that I'm somehow
hostile towards AUCTeX developers (I'm not), or that I want to compete
against them (I don't, and even if I did, I'm probably not competent
enough to do it successfully anyway).  The problem is that I'm /very/
critical towards the FSF (to the point that I do not want the FSF to be
in posession of any piece of paper with my personal signature).

> Bye,
> Mosè

Best regards,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University