Re: GNU ELPA package discoverability

[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. ]]]

  > > If "community-provided ELPA repositories" means those that include 
packages
  > > that depend on nonfree programs, we can't "work with" that.  The only 
thing
  > > we can legitimately say about them is "don't go there."

  > This point somewhat surprises me.  By that logic GNU ELPA itself would be
  > "don't go there" as it hosts the excorporate package [1] which depends on
  > Microsoft's Exchange service, a non-free Service as a Software Substitute.

Exchange is a service, not a program, it is not well-defined to say it
is "nonfree".  See
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html.

Also, email service is not SaaSS.  See
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html.

The criterion we apply to GNU ELPA is not to refer users (lead or
steer them) to a nonfree program.  A service is a different issue.  We
don't have a rule against packages that communicate with problematical
services.

Should we have one?  Maybe, but that question calls for careful
thought, not haste.

-- 
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)