Re: Why are so many great packages not trying to get included in GNU Emacs? WAS: Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

> On Apr 24, 2020, at 2:07, Stefan Kangas <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> The reasons why package authors would not want to include it, on the other 
> hand,
> could obviously vary.  Some of the reasons I have seen are
> unfortunately very shallow:
> 
> - Misconceptions about how hard it is to work with emacs-devel.

That's something that documentation can fix.

> - An unwillingness to assign copyright to the FSF, seemingly often more due to
>  inertia than any principled opposition.

It has been mentioned a number of times already.

I think that the process could be streamlined (and there is a need to check 
that with the legal team I guess).

For one, the actually *submission* of the copyright assignment to the FSF could 
me made to be as easy as a simple code commit, signed with something like a gpg 
key or something.

Once the developer has simply "pushed that button," the contribution should be 
considered valid, and then eventually the developer receives a PDF signed by 
the FSF to confirm the assignment.

And that should be it (or are there cases when the FSF refuses the assignment ?)

> - Strongly ideological anti-FSF sentiments (often disguised as 
> "non-ideological"
>  or "practical").

Hahaha :) I'm not sure a REOPEN YOUR CODE meme would pass muster in our times, 
but it seems to me that there is some overlap between populations that reject 
the FSF "because freedom" and those who reject sanitary lockdown "because 
freedom". But I won't err on that path any further :)

> I mean, that's my impression of it, and I'm not pretending that this list is
> exhaustive or even generally correct.

I think point 1 and 2 are the best the FSF/GNU could do.

> But maybe we should think about how we can argue our case more strongly, and
> clear up at least some of the misconceptions.  For example, we could make
> additions to the Emacs Lisp manual on why one would want to push to have their
> package included.  We could also explain that they can have their code in GNU
> ELPA, or even GNU Emacs, and host a development repository anywhere
> they like, etc.

Excellent !!! Yes, and the emacs site too !



Jean-Christophe Helary
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http://mac4translators.blogspot.com @brandelune