[Ghm-discuss] GHM in Paris: let's talk about extensibility

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello GNU!

I’d like to submit that the main topic for this summer’s GHM be
software extensibility, or: how extensible designs make software
freedom practical.

A motivating example: Libre Office and Linux-libre provide users with
the 4 freedoms.  Yet, to what extent are we, as computer scientists,
able to use freedom #1 to study how the program works, and change it to
make it do what we want?  What about your mother?

Emacs is designed to make it easier for users to actually use
freedom #1 [0].  Guile intends to spread this philosophy to other
applications, and the Hurd to the OS core (surely there are other
projects that have adopted a similar philosophy.)

People from all 3 projects plan to attend and possibly give a talk at
the GHM, so it seems like a good opportunity to discuss this
topic.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

[0] “[P]rogramming new editing commands was so convenient that even the
    secretaries in his office started learning how to use it.”
    http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html