Re: rssh.el interactions with ange-ftp/efs

rms> There are more than two alternatives for how much to support rms> this idea, and I haven't yet decided what I will do. I only rms> know one thing I will not do--I won't prominently advertise rms> in the Emacs distribution the possibility of using ssh. Forgive me if my memory is inaccurate, but it seems to me that Emacs (and gcc, for that matter) advertises prominently the possibility of its use on MS-DOS, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX, yadda, yadda. These OSes are not only not free, they are not even open source. It seems to me that use of a non-free helper application, especially if it conforms to a public protocol and API, is far preferable to use of a proprietary OS from the point of view of GNU's goals. I suspect that, as you imply, most XEmacs developers will prefer to be laid-back about the non-freeness of the ssh implementation. But if I were you, I would put in the hooks to use ssh (perhaps in the form of ftpsshd), along with a not-at-all-laid-back caveat: Currently, the only implementation of the ssh protocol which is widely available is the ssh implementation. This is not free software (*Note: A Taxonomy of Not-Quite-Free Software). If only a few of you who find this feature useful will donate some of your time or other resources to the GNU lsh project, we will quickly have a free implementation, with all the benefits that entails. Just because "embrace and extend" is most commonly associated with Watson, Gates, and other Vile Beasts doesn't mean we can't make it work for us. In fact, the GNU Manifesto is pretty explicit that that's what the strategy is. Isn't it? rms> This is one of the ways that the rivalry between Emacs and rms> XEmacs is detrimental to the Free Software Movement. It is a rms> popularity contest, which makes it hard to say no to anyone. rms> Doing whatever the typical users want tends to reinforce the rms> majority view, not to change it. IMO, telling people that because they consort with heathen, you won't give them the features they want (in security issues, they will surely promote that to "need") is more counterproductive. Give them options, and where they require helpers that aren't free, encourage them to help reimplement those helpers as free software. Giving options is what Emacs is best at. In the last couple of years, I've seen a _lot_ of people come to Linux for the price, and turn around and say "If this is what free software is about, I want to give something back. But I'm not a programmer. Help me help Linux!" This is reaching the level of a FAQ. If it reaches nonprogrammers, it's really contagious. Let's spread the contagion as widely as possible, by giving people as few excuses not to use free software as possible. -- University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091 "Kiss a Solaris programmer today."