Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >   >    https://hewgill.com/dict/
   > 
   > Unfortunately, it is a "site", meaning a server you have to contact
   > over the internet.
   > 
   > The tendency to involve other people's computers in doing jobs that
   > you could do on your own computer is a fundamental wrong turning in
   > computing practice.  'dict' is an example of this problem.
   > 
   > We need to lead people away from that paradigm, not adapt our
   > activities to fit into it.

   I understand the general issue with using services, but in this case
   the server just sends the description of a word taken from a
   dictionary.  

I think the specific problem in this case is that this specific site
is doing some type of conversion between the Wikitionary format to
something dict clients understand.  To quote part of the initial
message:

  > This site seems to offer a gateway between Wiktionary and DICT
  > clients:

But to put the blame on dict as the problem seems strange; it isn't
causing this and it is no different than finger, bug trackers, or even
just a plain wget.