Re: Release plans

[Thomas Lord]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie writes:
>
>  > I think it's more important for people actually to be free than to be
>  > aware of it.
>
> Freedom is about choice; choice requires awareness of alternatives and
> that you are able to choose them.  IMO, you cannot "actually be free"
> without being aware of it.
>   

That's too simple.

Hopefully one's freedoms are larger in scope than one's awareness  can
fully grasp.   That is, we (hope to be) always more free than we can
ever know -- we always have only partial knowledge of our possible
choices.

Instead, we're free to do anything in the intersection of that those
choices we can *discover* from our current state with those
choices that are physically available to us.

Of course, even the question of "what choices can we *discover*"
doesn't have a static, classical answer.   For example, to discover
choice A might preclude discovering choice B and vice versa --
so, before we see either choice A or B, where are we exactly?
Free to A or free to B but not both in one sense.   In another
sense not free to A or B until we become aware of one or the
other.   Simplistic "rational actor" theories of "freedom" don't
cut it except as approximations.

All this highly abstract ethical theory is a cul de sac:  pretty
to drive around and have a look at but, then to get anywhere
else, you have to leave and find another street.

In a civic context, the question is simpler:  a condition
of liberty is one in which the civil order doesn't impose
an obstacle to a given choice or to discovering that choice.

The conclusion is the same, though, regarding dynamic
loading in GNU Emacs.  The civil order precludes doing
so.  Users are deprived of a freedom that could otherwise
be trivially afforded them by virtue of a deliberate effort
to achieve exactly that effect.



-t





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