Re: rssh.el interactions with ange-ftp/efs
Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> writes:
Yes, that's true--but that's not enough to be free software.
So we
don't use ssh in the GNU Project, and I would not want to encourage
others to use it.
Whether you like it or not, people are using ssh because it fulfils
their need, a need they consider very important. Having Emacs playing
along does not necessarily mean "encouraging" others to use it -- it
can be taken as making Emacs more useful for them.
By doing that, we lose nothing -- once Emacs supports and understands
ssh, it will be trivial to replace the current underlying ssh clients
and servers with the free ones. The Emacs support and the underlying
implementation are completely orthogonal issues.
I would not reject a program merely because its license is not the
GPL. If it is free software using some other license, we can still
recommend it. However, ssh is not free software at all.
Rejecting ssh on the grounds of non-freedom is fine. Rejecting the
option of using ssh in Emacs on the same grounds is not fine -- it
would be like disallowing the use of non-free compilers in `M-x
compile' only because these other compilers are non-free -- you can do
it, but it's IMHO the wrong thing to do.