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Emacs maintainer steps down
- unknownzero 11y agoI would encourage anyone who clicks the link to read through the thread. Pretty heartwarming to see the goodbyes, a definite mid-day boost :)
- laurentoget 11y agoThe tone of that thread definitely makes contributing to emacs development an appealing project.
- username223 11y agoI've made some trivial contributions (enough to require copyright papers, barely), and can confirm that it's a smart, positive community. There are the usual few kooks, and you absolutely must work within RMS's strict ideas on software freedom, but it's nowhere near LKML hostility and dysfunction. The regulars, including RMS, operate in and assume good faith.
- tux3 11y agoIs LKML generally hostile to newcomers and not assuming good faith? I heard it had issues, but not this one.
- bobjob 11y agoThey are only hostile to newcomers not willing to learn what is important for the project. Things like bug free code, code that does what is supposed to do in a way that does not interfere with other kernel parts, ...
- gearhart 11y agoThat's a sentiment that every OSS project maintainer should take note of.
- davidw 11y agoI've been using Emacs for 20 years, I realized. If you think about all the different things that come and go so quickly in this field, that's a pretty amazing run. Thanks Stefan!
- username223 11y agoSame, come to think of it -- almost 20 to the day. In a world of modular software and months-old "unicorns," it's good to remember the monolithic, decades-old tortoises and bristlecones that remain and sustain.
- jsilence 11y agoSame here. About twenty years. Started programming with emacs and cvs on DEC Ultrix machines. Learned UNIX the hard way. Good old Dave sitting in the corner, hacking away on imake, and when asked about something answered "Try man something. Don't know what man is? Try man man". Been on and off with emacs, but never really got into elisp. Only after having to learn Scheme/Racket for a Fluxus project, I read elisp with different eyes now. Really whish I got into Lisp earlier.
- pmoriarty 11y agoI feel the same. Not getting in to Lisp and Scheme decades ago has been my biggest regret, as far as technology goes.
- chetanahuja 11y ago22 for me. Damn I suddenly feel old.
- jeffbarr 11y agoYou guys are kids. I used MINCE (Mince is Not Complete EMACS) in 1981.
- 11y ago
- nanny 11y agoNote: this happened almost a month ago now. See these threads for the discussion on the new head maintainer: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-09/msg01108.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-09/msg01... https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-10/threads.html#00007 https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-10/threa...
- Coffeewine 11y agoI recognize that the role of head maintainer is in part a political one, but yow.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- espadrine 11y agoSnippet that I believe exemplifies what you mean (since it's a bit hidden): It would be wrong and harmful to give MacOS an "equal footing". Our goal is to replace nonfree systems (and nonfree software in general), not to enhance them. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-10/msg00384.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-10/msg00...
- amyjess 11y ago...and attitudes like that just result in many people not using any free software at all, when they could instead be running free programs on a non-free platform.
- catern 11y agoIt's important to read the full context. All that snippet means is that the GNU Emacs maintainer should be fine with adding new features to Emacs that are not portable to non-free platforms like Windows and Mac OS X. That is a perfectly reasonable requirement: Non-free platforms shouldn't hold back free platforms, because portability is not the ultimate goal, creating the best free software possible is the ultimate goal.
- jwr 11y agoStefan's stewardship resulted in a much-improved Emacs. He did a very good job.
- michaelhoffman 11y agoI'm really sorry to see Stefan go. The rate at which Emacs improved while he was maintainer contrasts quite strongly with the stagnation of some years before (6 years from Emacs 21 to Emacs 22).
- agumonkey 11y agoInfrastructure changed a lot. major emacs packages are now upgraded everyday (I use melpa "rolling release"), so different than the emacs distribution every x years. Not to reduce Stefan role in emacs quality and liveliness. Seeing the praise he received says a lot.
- julienchastang 11y agoBTW, there is also MELPA Stable https://stable.melpa.org https://stable.melpa.org
- philsnow 11y agoHow does that work with long-running emacs processes? I generally keep a daemonized emacs or two running the entire duration of my uptime. If package A depends on a certain behavior of package B (but doesn't eagerly load it), if I start emacs, load package A, wait some duration X, package B gets updated, then I load package B, will A break? If so, is that a failure of A for not eagerly loading B, or a failure of the dependency system for not letting A declare that it wants a particular version of B, or something else? Sorry, I have not really dived into package.el all that much and the documentation is somewhat fragmented since everybody customizes it the way they want.
- agumonkey 11y agoI don't know much either, I had folder issues many times (package-v1 still loaded trying to open .emacs.d/elpa/package-v1/some-file even though package-v1 has been deleted and now only package-v2 is on disk. I remember a few elisp level error after upgrades.
- seigel 11y agoHeading over to vi? :)
- meatysnapper 11y agoliVIn la VIda loca
- laurentoget 11y agoGood to know there are people stepping down off of open source project leadership roles without throwing a tantrum!
- jordigh 11y agoEmacs is a GNU package. While you are correct to call it "open source", its maintainers prefer to call it "free software", in order to emphasise freedom.
- epistasis 11y agoBetter to call it a GNU package, to emphasize the GNUness. GNU's definition of freedom is quite specific, and not my definition. Better to call it libre, as there is less confusion.
- jordigh 11y agoIt's no more specific than any definition that forbids others from taking freedom away.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- too_late 11y agoThe sooner Emacs dies, the sooner GNU devs will get around to Guilemacs, and we'll all be better off if that time ends up coming sooner rather than later. Edit: More people than I would've thought really ride that GNU dick. Emacs has for years propagated an idea that Elisp is somehow 'good enough' to handle problems leaving plugin developers to make their own way and solve problems in unorthodox ways. Emacs has never been well-designed, and Elisp has been the cinderblock on a rope that drags the whole project down. Guile on the other hand has seen steady development, good design choices, increases in performance, new features, etc. Guilemacs can't succeed until Emacs dies.
- JeremyBanks 11y agoIs your username intended to describe the idea you're suggesting?
- too_late 11y agono
- melling 11y agoI guess this will impact the Emacs 25 release?
- ilaksh 11y agoI remember in my C++ class around 1997 the professor was saying emacs was more a way of life or operating system than just an editor. He was only half-kidding. In the past 18 years I imagine the functionality may be even more comprehensive, if that is possible?
- rurban 11y agoAll this over rtags[0] not in melpa/core? Typical RMS drama, but I see his point, and he reacted quite defensively. Not as aggressive anti-clang/apple as before. 0: https://github.com/Andersbakken/rtags https://github.com/Andersbakken/rtags