Windows and MacOS and emacs.html

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

The recent request to give FreeBSD "top billing" on emacs.html,
along with "GNU/Linux, Windows, and MacOS", led me to look at the
page to see what that would mean.

It appears that BSDs has already been listed there, which is 
But I saw something that is not ok: the way that Windows and MacOS
are given "top billing" too.

It is proper to include support for running Emacs on Windows and
MacOS, given that people keep maintaining it, and useful to inform
users that they can run Emacs on those systems.  But we should take
care to avoid appearing to legitimize the use of Windows and MacOS.
The most important thing about them is that _morally_ they are _not_
on a par with GNU/Linux, or with BSD.  When we tell people that Emacs
supports running on Windows and MacOS, we should also point out that
they are part of the problem we aim to eliminate.

Would people please change emacs.html to avoid that impression?

This approach could handle that.

    Freedom-respesting operating systems:

          GNU/Linux      BSDs

      Freedom-denying operating systems:

           Windows      MacOS

However, there is another problem there.

The subsections on installation on Windows, and on MacOS, are part of a
section that starts with an explanation of our policy towards those
systems, with heading "Nonfree systems."  That much is good.

But if you follow the links "Windows" and "MacOS" at the top of the
page, they take you straight to the subsections.  Users who follow
that path get to the practical information without passing by any hint
that we have moral criticism of those systems.

Indeed, we would like to make it easy for users of user-subjugating
systems to install Emacs and get a taste of freedom.  But that _must
not_ get in the way of conveying our main message, let alone cancel it
out.

So I think we should make "Windows" and "MacOS" link to the
"Nonfree systems" header line.

Any comments?  Let's discuss what change to make here.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)