GNU bug report logs - #32722
26.1; Org-publish depend on non-free platform ?

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From: Robert Horn <rjhorn <at> panix.com>
To: Nicolas Floquet <n <at> flqt.fr>
Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>, rms <at> gnu.org, 32722 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>, kaushal.modi <at> gmail.com
Subject: bug#32722: [O] bug#32722:  bug#32722: 26.1; Org-publish depend on non-free platform ?
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 12:37:45 -0400

Nicolas Floquet writes:

> Actually, it's an ethical issue. That are not always easily solved with
> technical solutions, I guess…
>

Perhaps you could clarify the ethical issues.  The initial RMS comment
on this issue in this thread is:

/* from RMS email

Emacs should not advise people to load anything from outside Emacs
(counting ELPA).  So this needs to be deleted.

If htmlize is useful, we should put it into Emacs.
Is there some obstacle to that?

*/

I can hypothesize various ethical, marketing, operational, and user
experience reasons for not advising people to load ...

Could you explain the ethical issue(s) that are of specific concern.

Further from RMS was the suggested technical fix

/* from RMS email later in thread
To motivate people to do this, I say we shouild not ship another
release with that reference to GitHub.  Eli, do you agree?
*/

This makes it clearly the reference to Github that is the concern.  I
could accept a change such as replacing that reference with text saying
"use ???? to find html..."  I'm not sure what to suggest since Google,
duck-duck-go, and other search engines are all commercial non-free
operations.

Rehosting onto a free platform, perhaps gnu.org, might be an option.  A
simple mirror onto a free platform might suffice.  Linux, python, and
other major open source efforts deal with platform issues by providing
their own primary distribution platform.

I can seem some ethical concerns with using a proprietary platform.  Git
was created due to problems with a dependency on a proprietary platform,
although in that case it was more related to a divergence in business
strategic directions than ethical issues.

--
Robert Horn
rjhorniii <at> gmail.com

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