Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Marcel Ventosa]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2020 08:52:49 +0200
Thibaut Verron <thibaut.verron@gmail.com> wrote:

> Le ven. 16 oct. 2020 à 08:03, Marcel Ventosa <mve1@runbox.com> a
> écrit :
> >
> > On Thu, 15 Oct 2020 23:59:07 -0400
> > Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> >  
> > > I hope that only a minority of Emacs users know about MELPA, and
> > > I'd rather not inform the rest about it.  But if something is
> > > going to inform them anyway, it is better to do it with a
> > > denunciation.  
> >
> >
> > I've been using Emacs (and MELPA) for the best part of a decade and
> > knew nothing about this! I'm concerned to use only free software and
> > actively avoid proprietary software, so this is a bit of a shock.  
> 
> As I understand it, Melpa packages cannot *be* or *install* non-free
> software. But some will not work without such software, which can in
> theory encourage users to install it.
> 
> So unless you yourself installed non-free software, Melpa cannot have
> made your Emacs configuration non-free by accident.

I understand, thanks for the explanation. In that case, I think I'm
well informed enough to have avoived the dangers. I wonder how many
people are not. AFAIK, both Trisquel and Parabola keep out packages
that recommend or encourage proprietary software, which seems essential
to protect users' freedom. 

> > In fact, I would go the extra mile and say Emacs should expressly
> > warn users over the dangers of installing proprietary software from
> > unofficial repositories (by the way, I always just assumed MELPA was
> > somehow official and related to ELPA, because its name is so
> > similar to ELPA). This survey could provide a good opportunity for
> > such information/education.  
> 
> ELPA means Emacs Lisp Package Archive, so both Melpa and GNU Elpa are
> ELPA's. I think that commonly referring to GNU Elpa as simply Elpa
> (which I am also guilty of) is a bigger source of confusion than
> Melpa and GNU Elpa sharing the same suffix.

As written on the MELPA Github about page:

"MELPA is Milkypostman's ELPA or Milkypostman's Experimental Lisp
Package Archive if you're not into the whole brevity thing." 

Perhaps the shared `E' in `Elpa' is purely coincidental?

> GNU Elpa and the future Non-GNU Elpa are (will be) activated by
> default as package archives, Melpa is not.
> The hope is that once 99% of the packages by the community are
> available in an archive activated by default, users will not rush to
> install Melpa in the same proportions as today.

This will be good news! In the meantime, I wonder how many others are
unaware of the potential dangers of using MELPA. A prominent place to
inform Emacs users about these dangers would be useful; perhaps this
survey will provide a good first opportunity. In any case, I'm thankful
to RMS and this survey related conversation for an important discovery.