Re: Emacs 29.0.50 Snapshot binaries for WIndows

[Tim Cross]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ 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 "snapshot" releases are apparently something else.  How are they
>   > > different from the Windows binaries volunteers have made in the past?
>
>   > They aren't made from releases but from copies ("snapshots") of the
>   > development tree.
>
> Thanks.  Now I know concretely what the issue is, and I can draw some
> conclusions.
>
> The issue is a matter of the priorities of our project.  We should not
> be catering to Windows (or MacOS, or any nonfree system) more than we
> cater to the GNU system, because GNU and the Free World get priority
> on principle.
>
> If people using versions the GNU system have no need for snapshots
> like these (perhaps because they are all happier compiling the sources
> themselves, as some have suggested), then then these snapshots don't
> raise a moral issue.
>
> But if in fact users of some GNU/Linux distros would like this kind of
> snapshot too, we should provide this sort of help on those distros
> before we provide it on Windows.
>
> It's not a matter of _who_ does the work, it's a matter of which work
> gets done.

It might be worth noting that manyh of the GNU Linux distributions have
community generated binary package 'snapshots'. For example Debian and
Ubuntu do. However, I think many people on GNU Linux systems are happy
enough with just building from the git repository (I get the impression
this is something which is much easier to do than on platforms like
WIndows where there is probably a higher number of people who don't have
the requisite build tools installed). In some ways, it probably makes
sense to leave snapshots for GNU Linux distros to the communities
associated with each distro as those community efforts will also work to
ensure the snapshot complies with distrobution specific package formats
and installation standards. For example, Debian and Ubuntu have
additional Emacs site code to support those distros ability to have
multiple versions of Emacs installed at the same time. It also means
users can install the snapshots using the package management system they
are familiar with and there is less chance of causing issues when their
distro updates to newer versions.