Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 16.10.2020 22:17, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> [2020-10-16 17:04]:
> > And picking on 2-3 "ideologically impure" packages (out of several
> > thousands!) that are distributed on MELPA is counter-productive.
>
> There are few only until letter C, and I did not finish letter C, so I
> guess there are many, number of downloads in thousands, that is pretty

Not too long ago I went through the first 100 or so most popular 
packages on MELPA (at the request of RMS), and like 2-3 of them 
encouraged or required proprietary software to be installed. Ones near 
the tail of that 100, when sorted by popularity. It's a minor fraction.

> devastating for a repository that is supposed to push free software,
> in other words, repository is hypocritical.

No, it's supposed to _publish_ free software.

> Would it be only hypocritical without influencing users, fine, but it
> does influence thousands of users and is promoting the download number
> of software that guides users to non-free software, so that is how it
> becomes not ethical.

Some time ago I read an essay about infighting in the political left 
community. How a lot of members choose to find and attack progressively 
personal character faults in their fellow activists, instead of working 
together and presenting a united front against the capitalist oppressors.

You can draw an easy parallel to the software community and the struggle 
vs proprietary software.

> You know, in many countries, government is working for people, but
> from time to time, they will simply kill someone. You get the idea? Is
> it counter productive to complain on few killed?

It's counter-productive to quarrel with your neighbor about unmowed 
lawns or whatever when the government is doing the killing.

> > > I don't understand how refusing to draw attention to a repository that
> > > recommends proprietary software turns anyone into the "thought police".
> >
> > It's a *survey*! A survey is supposed to gather insight into what users do,
> > and what they need. Not shape their behavior.
>
> Every professional public survey is there to shape their behavior. You
> do the survey, you find out what public wants, then you make changes
> in such manner to influence public to gather more around you.

That's what I said.

But it doesn't work as well if the survey is biased from the outset.