4 ms·

that RMS refuses to endorse What's his rationale?

by gaius 8y ago

ww520 8y ago
NIH?
chuchana 8y ago
That Mac-only features would promote (the closed source) Mac OS X, if I remember correctly.
lvh 8y ago
Mostly because they'd add a feature on a non-free platform (macOS) that is otherwise missing from a free platform. Notably, color emoji have worked fine forever on macOS, and were then _intentionally broken_ (when I say broken I mean the UI blocked for about ten seconds and then finally either displays a placeholder or something similarly less featureful). The reason for this is because Linux font rendering can't get color emoji right.
- innagadadavida 8y ago
  Instead of blocking these features, won’t it be better to go fix he free platform? What he is doing only promotes mediocre free software to propagate that will only make user switch to other non-free alternatives - Vsnet and sublime are taking away many emacs users.
  - gkya 8y ago
    RMS isn't the god of all free software. A GNOME desktop is composed of hundreds of bits of software, and it encompasses many unrelated individuals, at least three big orgs (GNOME, GNU, FreeDesktop/SytemD people), and carries a baggage of decades of history. You can't say, in such a situation, unlike what Apple and Microsoft do to their users many times, that the new way is this and everybody has to just eat it up. WRT users switching, let them do. One thing I'd really fear would be Emacs becoming just another attention whore of a piece of software. Not only, but also, options and competition are very nice things to have. VSCode is not that interesting to me, but I really like Sublime Text; I can easily suggest it to anybody instead of Emacs if they are not into the idea of using a highly- and live-customisable and very composable environment and want sth. that just works.
jordigh 8y ago
That Emacs should not give an advantage to non-free operating systems. Now, because Emacs is free software, this doesn't prevent anyone such as Yamamoto to go and modify Emacs. Rms doesn't want his officially-sanctioned version to have Mac-only improvements, but he also defends the GPL which allows other people to do so. Rms isn't going to go and tell Yamamoto to take down his fork or anything (but he probably will tell macOS users at every opportunity that they are working with an abusive OS).
- na85 8y ago
  It might be abusive in the sense that it's nonfree but at least it's functional. Year of the Linux desktop jokes aside, I've just lately got sick of how broken Linux is on most laptops, even ThinkPads which are supposed to be the gold standard. My ThinkPad never had working suspend resume, for example, which is just basic stuff that Linux can't seem to get right. I'm not 24 and childfree any more. I don't have time to fiddle with acpi or systemd.
  - gaius 8y ago
    Still the only way to run Linux on your laptop and remain sane is to run it full-screen inside VirtualBox on OSX or Windows. I have been trying to do this for nearly 20 years now...
  - jordigh 8y ago
    I've used two Thinkpads. I'm currently on an X1 5th gen running Debian stable and it's the most blissful computer experience I've ever had. Everything works, the damn thing is fast, 12 hours of battery life and it's so light. I don't understand this magic but I'm glad it's there. Previously I was on an x250 also on Debian stable which also worked flawlessly until I dropped it hard. It was just a little heavier and a little slower than my current X1. On the topic of Macs being stable; I've seen my coworkers experience a lot of grief during the past few months with some macOS updates. I'm not saying that the experience is in general better with one setup or another, just that mine has been good. I'm sure your experiences are valid too.
  - jefurii 8y ago

that RMS refuses to endorse What's his rationale?

by gaius 8y ago

that RMS refuses to endorse What's his rationale?

ww520 8y ago

NIH?

chuchana 8y ago

That Mac-only features would promote (the closed source) Mac OS X, if I remember correctly.

lvh 8y ago

Mostly because they'd add a feature on a non-free platform (macOS) that is otherwise missing from a free platform. Notably, color emoji have worked fine forever on macOS, and were then _intentionally broken_ (when I say broken I mean the UI blocked for about ten seconds and then finally either displays a placeholder or something similarly less featureful). The reason for this is because Linux font rendering can't get color emoji right.

innagadadavida 8y ago
Instead of blocking these features, won’t it be better to go fix he free platform? What he is doing only promotes mediocre free software to propagate that will only make user switch to other non-free alternatives - Vsnet and sublime are taking away many emacs users.
- gkya 8y ago
  RMS isn't the god of all free software. A GNOME desktop is composed of hundreds of bits of software, and it encompasses many unrelated individuals, at least three big orgs (GNOME, GNU, FreeDesktop/SytemD people), and carries a baggage of decades of history. You can't say, in such a situation, unlike what Apple and Microsoft do to their users many times, that the new way is this and everybody has to just eat it up. WRT users switching, let them do. One thing I'd really fear would be Emacs becoming just another attention whore of a piece of software. Not only, but also, options and competition are very nice things to have. VSCode is not that interesting to me, but I really like Sublime Text; I can easily suggest it to anybody instead of Emacs if they are not into the idea of using a highly- and live-customisable and very composable environment and want sth. that just works.

jordigh 8y ago

That Emacs should not give an advantage to non-free operating systems. Now, because Emacs is free software, this doesn't prevent anyone such as Yamamoto to go and modify Emacs. Rms doesn't want his officially-sanctioned version to have Mac-only improvements, but he also defends the GPL which allows other people to do so. Rms isn't going to go and tell Yamamoto to take down his fork or anything (but he probably will tell macOS users at every opportunity that they are working with an abusive OS).

na85 8y ago
It might be abusive in the sense that it's nonfree but at least it's functional. Year of the Linux desktop jokes aside, I've just lately got sick of how broken Linux is on most laptops, even ThinkPads which are supposed to be the gold standard. My ThinkPad never had working suspend resume, for example, which is just basic stuff that Linux can't seem to get right. I'm not 24 and childfree any more. I don't have time to fiddle with acpi or systemd.
- gaius 8y ago
  Still the only way to run Linux on your laptop and remain sane is to run it full-screen inside VirtualBox on OSX or Windows. I have been trying to do this for nearly 20 years now...
- jordigh 8y ago
  I've used two Thinkpads. I'm currently on an X1 5th gen running Debian stable and it's the most blissful computer experience I've ever had. Everything works, the damn thing is fast, 12 hours of battery life and it's so light. I don't understand this magic but I'm glad it's there. Previously I was on an x250 also on Debian stable which also worked flawlessly until I dropped it hard. It was just a little heavier and a little slower than my current X1. On the topic of Macs being stable; I've seen my coworkers experience a lot of grief during the past few months with some macOS updates. I'm not saying that the experience is in general better with one setup or another, just that mine has been good. I'm sure your experiences are valid too.
- jefurii 8y ago