Re: Python mode failures with xemacs
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
David Kastrup writes:
> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
>
> > David Kastrup was a little peeved, and I don't blame him. His project
> > can't get merged because they lack assignments for maybe 5% or 10% of
> > the code in AUCTeX,
>
> What makes you think that? I don't think we have significant pieces of
> knowingly unassigned code
Of course there's very little "knowingly" unassigned code! That's my
point: you've done due diligence until it hurts.
Actually stopping short of hurting.
I don't think 5% of the code is "significant" anyway.
10 lines can be significant. But I think we should have the
infrastructure covered.
The chance that the FSF would get sued is vanishingly small, and if
you did, the judge would throw any damages out the window; there's no
evidence of intent or commercial gain, and plenty of evidence of due
diligence, present "sloppiness" notwithstanding (and if you ever need
a character witness to that effect, I'll pay my own plane fare!)
Uh, "diligence" is not the same as "cantankerous omnipresence".
> > but CEDET can be merged even though the way it was done
makes it
> > impossible for 3rd parties to legally redistribute the FSF's
> > tarballs!
>
> It was an honest mistake,
Yes and no. The current leadership is taking Emacs somewhere Richard
would never want it to go: to open source. They won't admit it even
to themselves, but that's what's happening; they're making tradeoffs
of "the most free way to do things" against features.
Admittance has nothing to do with it. When Stallman started the Free
Software Foundation, he staked out an areal in a void, beyond which he
did not want to go, avoiding slippery slopes. There no longer is a
void, but a crowded area. Slippery slopes are not a shere drop. Some
people try understanding his goals and make that the guidance for
sticking out their own areal not quite matching his, like Debian.
Others are fanboys that just follow Stallman around on the spot,
confident to stay in a free areal that way (never mind that they trip
him up frequently). And others stay around where nobody has fallen off
yet. And figure if they can still see people standing, they must be
fine.
Like religion, it is more related nowadays to people's social comfort
zones rather than personal beliefs.
I don't have a problem with that personally (except that it will
make
Emacs somewhat harder to keep up with for XEmacs ;-),
In areas that are a concern to myself, I fear it may be the other way
round. You'll find that in some respects, the English spoken in New
England, and the Irish dances there have changed less than at their
respective home where traditions are a less important tie.
but I think it's disingenuous for Emacs maintainers (and that
fundamental difference is one reason why I today limit my
contributions to those of the "Unwelcome Guest" on the ML).
I don't think they know how to care. Calling that (rather common)
incapacity disingenuous is overinterpreting things. And if I remember
correctly, the formal job of GNU project maintainer (and the
corresponding responsibility for keeping the policies of the GNU
project) still rests with Richard. If you take a look at his respective
request at
<URL:http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-03/msg00194.html>
you'll find that he does not list watching for GNU policies as a
responsibility.
And in
<URL:http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-02/msg02232.html>
you'll read
This is the fourth time that the Maintainer of GNU Emacs has been
someone other than me. Previous maintainers include Joe Arceneaux,
Jim Blandy, and Gerd Moellmann.
I don't think that those maintainers were responsible for the
non-technical aspects then (actually, if you remember the Arceneaux era,
it would be a quite daring statement to say that Richard left Emacs
policy alone).
So I don't think you are being fair to Chong and Stefan if you make them
responsible for the overall orientation of Emacs in the free software
universe. It is not their job description.
The problem is rather that the position of GNU policy maintainer for
Emacs is nominally Richard's, in reality mostly vacant. And appointing
somebody with the qualifications of being "chief GNUisance" without
being Richard would be harming the project. People have developed a
tolerance towards Richard (or moved to XEmacs), but they won't stand for
what they consider antics from anybody else. Because they are not as
much driven by the same vision but rather trust and loyalty that I can't
choose to consider ill-placed.
--
David Kastrup
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