Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Thibaut Verron]

Le sam. 17 oct. 2020 à 06:19, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> a écrit :
>
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > > Imagine if free software repository would publish only software that
>   > > wraps around proprietary software, would that be free? So it is matter
>   > > of policy.
>
>   > Incidentally, if Melpa agrees to your request to remove all packages
>   > wrapping around proprietary software, it will be a matter of days
>   > before such a repository appears.
>
> To move all the recommendations of nonfree software
> OUT of Melpa, and into some other obscure new repository,
> would be a great step forward!  It would eliminate one
> of the reasons why currently we must not inform people about Melpa.

It would not be obscure for very long, because most of the Emacs blogs
would not refrain from advertising it.

Moving the free packages to a GNU-managed non-GNU Elpa is imo a better
way to achieve such separation between free and non-free community
packages.

>
>   > And yes, it would be free, in my opinion. Because users are free to
>   > use Emacs in whichever way they want, including in workflows involving
>   > non-free software.
>
> Indeed they are, but you've changed to a different question.
>

I don't think I did. Making it as hard as possible for users to find
packages necessary for their workflow is acting against that freedom,
in my opinion.

>
>   > > For same reaso Debian GNU/Linux cannot be said to be free, at many
>   > > pages they guide users to include non-free software, unspoken from
>   > > Archlinux or other distributions.
>
>   > This is, again, a matter of opinion.
>
> You're entitled to your opinion, but this list is for discussing what
> to do in the GNU Project.  In the GNU Project, this question is a
> matter of stated policy.
>
> In https://gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html,
> our criteria say this is not acceptable.  That is why we classify
> Debian as nonfree in https://gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html.

As well as, apparently, all other major GNU/Linux distributions. I
wonder how many users would know about the GNU project if not for
those non-free distributions.

And there seems to have been no problem in publishing that list on
gnu.org, even though it names a number of non-free options. Why can't
the same be done with Melpa ?