Re: Org schemas we talked to be non-free, was: [ELPA] New package: repology.el

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> Cc: bugs@gnu.support, ulm@gentoo.org, dgutov@yandex.ru, ams@gnu.org,
>       arthur.miller@live.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:53:57 -0500
> 
>   > Forgive me for a possibly naïve question, but why on earth would you
>   > want to modify a schema?  It's the same as modifying a physical law.
> 
>   > Would you say that E = mc² is "non-free" because it cannot be
>   > meaningfully modified at will?
> 
> We can't modify physics

Exactly.  And similarly with the data types described by a schema:
changing the description doesn't change the things it describes, it
just makes the description inaccurate and thus useless.

> but a physicist might very well want to modify
> the equation E = mc².  For instance, perse might want to use natural units,
> in which c = 1, which would give E = m.

A schema supports extension, which IMO is the analogy of that.

> And that's considering only _valid_ equations for relating mass and
> energy.  I might want to modify the equation to make it be valid for
> some other purpose, or to present an instance of an equation which is
> not valid.

I very much hope we won't fight a Quixotic battle so that we could
make a schema invalid.