Re: Org schemas we talked to be non-free, was: [ELPA] New package: repology.el

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2021-01-25 18:14]:
> > Let us say enriched mode in Emacs, if it would not be modifiable by
> > programmers who fork Emacs, I am not sure if Emacs would be free
> > software.
> 
> Enriched mode doesn't have or use a schema, so this example is
> inapplicable.

But it has its format. Right?

Content-Type: text/enriched
Text-Width: 70

<center>

Hello there</center>

How about programmer comes and says, now I want to call it Enriched
mode, but internally it has to look like this:

FORMAT: Enriched
Width: 70

<PUT-MIDDLE>

Hello there</DONE>

> > How about Org mode itself? If its format would not be modifiable, then
> > we would not have software similar on Org or based on Org mode, such
> > as:
> > 
> > OneModel — an Alternative to emacs org-mode
> > https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/04/23/0149257
> 
> Is OneModel compatible with Org?  If it is, then it's an extension,
> not some modification.  If it isn't compatible, then it's simply a
> different schema, unrelated to Org.

Exactly, I was thinking we were chatting about that. Of course that by
changing schema one may get incompatible formats. And that shall be
software freedom. We have to allow programmers to make any formats and
build upon previous formats.

Incompatibility or not, that is not major point.

When StarOffice was made first time its format was incompatible to
many other formats. It was proprietary software. I know it as I have
purchased it in Germany and used. Without that incompatible format we
would not have today Open Document Format. So those schemas should be
also free that new formats can be devised. The history of
StarOffice/OpenOffice/LibreOffice shows that freedom is important and
that people build upon it.