bug#37267: 27.0.50; Menus About GNU and GNU and Freedom to be made offline

[Jean Louis]

* Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> [2019-09-03 01:43]:
> 
> We made the opposite decision 5+ years ago, ref eg 00156f9549.

Sure somebody made such decision in past. Is that to keep up with the
ever changing online page?

I think that Emacs version is changing more often then the referenced
pages. And I am thinking for dissemination of the message that is
referenced by those URLs, in fact I am worried for that, as I know
from first hand that so many students do not have access to
Internet. At least not always and not from every computer. I also know
they use Emacs from relation with some of those students in East
Africa. Speaking just out of personal experience.

I can see that those files were removed out of the offline
distribution:

* etc/CENSORSHIP, etc/GNU, etc/LINUX-GNU, etc/THE-GNU-PROJECT, etc/WHY-FREE:

This happened, so it seems to me, out of the idea that everybody has
Internet.

It would be more beneficial would it stay in the distribution, and
that menus are offline available.

Or that menus would point to online links only when there is Internet
available, that could be double option.

Files like GNU-PROJECT and those others, they need not be Emacs
specific to be with the Emacs, there is nothing wrong it it. It is
spreading free software idea.

Does the removal of those files point to some statistics that files
were not contributive to free software idea? I remember myself reading
similar files in /etc back in 1999 and "getting the idea", and I did
not find it on Internet neither looked for it on Internet.

Think about what is beneficial to spread the message of free software.

Even if you made decision in past, you can still make new decision in
present.

Jean