Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Marcel Ventosa]

The original discussion involved the following:

- Richard suggested a survey with open questions (There is no need to
  mention any repository in an open question). 

- MELPA contains packages that promote proprietary software.

- If MELPA *had* to be mentioned in the survey, Richard suggested
  mentioning it with a disclaimer to abide by GNU policy and warn
  unsuspecting survey takers. 

With respect, I don't see the point of discussing off-topic tangents or
responding to apagogical arguments. 

P.S. For the record, I never provided examples of proprietary software.

On Sat, 17 Oct 2020 22:51:54 +0300
Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> wrote:

> On 17.10.2020 14:40, Marcel Ventosa wrote:
> 
> >> So we won't suggest ELPA as an option either? What about the users
> >> who don't know the difference? MELPA is also an ELPA, after all (as
> >> in "Emacs Lisp Package Archive").  
> > 
> > Is it a survey then or is it an opportunity to "educate/advertise?"
> >  
> 
> Somebody else already explained that a poll where only one of the 
> options is written and others are free-form will be biased anyway.
> 
> >>> I
> >>> would think it should be guided, for the most part, by what the
> >>> people putting their time into it want to create, within the
> >>> principles of the philosophy of the project and its goals.  
> >   
> >> It's not a painting or a novel. It's a software project, with
> >> certain expectations of practicality.  
> > 
> > Are you claiming Emacs is not practical?  
> 
> It's less practical than it could be.
> 
> And you seem to be claiming it doesn't need to.
> 
> >>> If they are not, Emacs makes it quite simple to implement changes
> >>> for personal "improvements". I have written functions that serve
> >>> me personally and change the behavior of Emacs to suit my needs.
> >>> There are limits to what I can do, which could be pushed if I
> >>> dedicated a greater effort to do so. How is that unfair?  
> >   
> >> You're veering the discussion off to the side for some reason.  
> > 
> > I'm explaining how easy it is to modify Emacs to suit particular
> > needs, and listing the possibilities that already exist for doing
> > so.  
> 
> Why are you explaining that to an Emacs developer?
> 
> >> But if we're talking of "unfair", releasing Emacs under GPL,
> >> enabling such excellent extensibility that multiple communities
> >> spring up over years, ones brimming with creativity and people
> >> dedicating years of their spare time to the extensions, and then
> >> badmouthing them from afar as though they violated some existing
> >> contract (social or legal), *that* is unfair.  
> > 
> > It is GNU policy not to promote or encourage proprietary software.  
> 
> Those are not objective words, but a matter of opinion, to say the
> least.
> 
> > To
> > the extent that any community does so, GNU must not promote or
> > encourage that community.  
> 
> You are saying that, by mentioning MELPA is the poll, GNU would
> promote MELPA. Right?
> 
> Are you promoting proprietary software by saying the phrase
> "proprietary software", over and over, on this mailing list? And even
> giving examples sometimes.
> 
> > I fail to see what injustice has been perpetrated on the
> > MELPA maintainers here, or how they have been badmouthed.  
> 
> Saying "MELPA promotes proprietary software" is like saying that GNU 
> project promotes, I don't know... late-stage capitalism. Just by the 
> virtue of being mostly developed in a capitalist country, and by
> being useful to many organizations participating in capitalist
> economies with high degree of inequality.
> 
> Or that it promotes proprietary software by providing support for
> some of it.
> 
> Let's disregard its mission, and all virtues and accomplishments,
> shall we?