Re: Need of ‘stubborn governance’

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > Emacs and plugins

   Refers to the question whether there should be a formal API to
   denote that the library is under GNU GPL-compatible terms, right?

That is one such issue, but another was with the package repository
and how that was done so that GNU Emacs doesn't indirectly recommend
propietery software.

   > not allowing propietery hackery with GCC

   Refers to the suggestion to make GCC licence more permissive to
   compete with LLVM better, right?

I'm not aware of such suggestions, but such a move would be
disastrous.  In this case was how GCC was designed to not allow
seperate plugins making sure we do not fall into the trap that Linux
achived to create.

   > Objective-C backend

   Refers to events of 30 years ago, right?

Yes, the Objective-C backend in GCC is free bcasue of how GCC was
licensed.

   Whatʼs about Readline and Tivoization, though?

With Readline I was refering to how GNU clisp used readline, and was
subsequently released under the GNU GPL.  With Tivoization I was
refering to how, and why the GNU GPL version 3 came to be under much
harsh criticism, in an effort to ensure that we can still update our
devices with software that they are distributed with.

A less stubborn person would have allowed all these things to happen,
and we would be worse off today.

   > To understand a opposition, one needs to know the why.  Taking
   > your statement at face value as to what might have been said,
   > that is, calling other free systems for "lesser systems" would be
   > unfriendly and unkind, so why do that?  That in it self would be
   > a good reason to strongly object to such a statement since it
   > would alienate people working on other free systems.
   >
   > But now knowing the precise words used, making any fair analysis
   > of the decision is hard, and a simply way to find a false
   > reasoning is to call it "stubborn" or similar.

   Sorry, I re-read this several times, yet still do not follow.
   Could you recap it in a simpler language?

You mentioned opposition as to why Guix shouldn't be "the GNU system",
but not the reasoning behind the opposition.  I was trying to explain
why the opposition, based on your account, would have made sense -- in
that making the claim that other systems are "less important would"
have been counter productive.

Does that better explain it?