*NOTE* This email contains a strong opinion about a certain three-letter organization. If you have a problem with that, you can stop reading right about now. ;-)
On 2015-01-23, at 20:18, Greg Troxel <g...@ir.bbn.com> wrote: > Marcin Borkowski <mb...@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes: > >> On 2015-01-22, at 17:41, Jose E. Marchesi <jema...@gnu.org> wrote: >> >>> *NOTE* It's about an app which is *not* open source (some parts of code >>> will opened, see below). If you have a problem with that, you can stop >>> reading right about now... >>> >>> Please stop using the GNU mailing lists to promote proprietary software. >> >> It might be the case that I do not understand something. >> >> AFAIR, there was a recent discussion on another GNU mailing list about >> usability of Emacs under Windows. (Maybe it was somewhere else, I'm not >> sure, then my question is theoretical.) A few people claimed that Emacs >> under Windows is fully functional and works well. Would this also be >> considered "promoting proprietary software"? > > The point here is that the FSF is a charitable nonprofit which promotes > free software. Their servers have usage guidelines: > > https://savannah.gnu.org/register/requirements.php > > Basically, helping Free software to work on non-Free operating systems > is ok, as long as the non-Free OS is not the proprietary target and the > software works best (or equal) on Free systems. Supporting or > advertising non-Free software is not ok. > > So the opinions of our hosts are pretty clear. 1. I see, it is indeed pretty clear. I did not know that, and I am thankful that you pointed it out. (In particular, this seems to more or less answer my questions.) Incidentally, it makes me satisfied that I decided not to sign the FSF copyright papers: I do not want to be formally involved in any way with this organization (for instance, I do not want them to have any piece of paper with my personal signature, nor would I buy any book from them knowing that this way I would support them with my money). 2. I would also prefer people here to express information about the rules which might not be known to e.g. anybody who learned about list from the Org-mode site and did not want to spend time on the FSF website with similarly factual way as you (and let me make this very clear: I again thank you for that, even if we do disagree), not with hostility toward a person who (like me, and apparently other people) does not treat software as religion and does not consider non-free (as defined by RMS) software necessary immoral. (And that's good for me, personally: if I were to treat software as religion, I might consider switching to Vim at this very moment, and it would be a nuisance, since I both am not accustomed to it and consider it technically inferior to Emacs. The current situation also makes me uncomfortable: I did recommend Emacs to many people, sometimes successfully, and from now on I'm going to consider it my moral obligation to state clearly that when advertising Emacs, I do not endorse any opinions of RMS or FSF – indeed, I would rather warn people not to listen to them, or rather: to listen to them while carefully judging what they hear.) 3. I would like to know where on the Internet I could discuss Org-related topics in a free (“free as in freedom”, to quote RMS once again) way, since clearly (and ironically, I'm inclined to add) this is not possible on any mailing list hosted by the FSF. Please note: I do not consider freedom of speech an absolute value, and I do not consider censorship necessarily immoral. My criticism of the FSF is not that they effectively endorse censorship of some kind; I'm fine with that, it is their servers after all, they are the hosts and they write the rules. (Although I find it a bit hypocritical that at the same time they apparently deny programmers the somehow analogous right to license the code they wrote using some non-FSF-approved license.) My problem with the FSF is that they represent and spread false moral views, and this is something harmful. (Even though I *do* agree with the FSF about many things, e.g., many of the remarks on their "words to avoid" page are definitely worth spreading. OTOH, I am not convinced that free software is necessarily the right answer to the problem they fight). Regards, -- Marcin Borkowski http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science Adam Mickiewicz University
