Re: New maintainer

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

John Wiegley writes:

 > I'm beginning to think GNU Emacs will need someone who also cares
 > about the freedom argument first, and the technical needs second,
 > because I'm very much concerned I would chomping at the bit to move
 > forward, and unable to for reasons I don't necessarily agree with.

I wouldn't worry about that if I were you.  The principle itself
bothers me a heck of a lot more than the exercise of it does.

In the twenty years I've been following Emacs development, I can
remember only four occasions where Richard has deliberately sacrificed
significant improvements to Emacs in the name of promoting either
software freedom or the GNU Project: TRAMP, Bazaar, DSOs, and now use
of the AST exported by LLVM.

Of course, the TRAMP mistake has long since been corrected, and the
Bazaar fiasco is a thing of the past.  The no-DSO policy has been
rescinded recently, and work is actively proceeding on adding that
feature.  LLVM?  "This, too, will pass."

Bottom line: just thinking about it is frustrating, yes, but
"consistently hampered" (your words) in getting work done?  No.