Subject: bug#46472: Make lisp/mail/uce.el obsolete

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2021 19:25:26 +0200

> From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
> Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 11:14:13 -0600
> Cc: [email-masked]
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> > I don't see how our views on what is and isn't appropriate response to
> > spam should be mandatory for the few users who may disagree.
> 
> Moving this to obsolete/ does not make it mandatory for anyone to do
> anything.  It is not within our power to do that; one of the freedoms
> granted by the GPL is to run the program for any purpose.

Moving it to obsolete/ will make using it an annoyance.  If I were one
of those who for some reason use this package, I'd resent that move.
What I resent when done to myself I prefer we don't do to others.

> AFAIK, nowhere in the GPL, the GNU Manifesto etc. does it say that it is
> contrary to the spirit of free software to make useless features
> obsolete.

That this feature is obsolete is one opinion.  Even if that opinion is
predominant, it doesn't mean different opinions aren't possible, let
alone legitimate.

It is IMO condescending to force our views on others.

> > Is there any other, more modern method we support to respond to spam?
> 
> Yes, I listed some of them in my previous reply.

And I already said most of the above in my previous replies.  But we
are still arguing, for some reason that evades me.

Bottom line: I find obsolescence to be inappropriate for this kind of
situations.  If we want to warn users against responding to spam, we
should find a different way of doing that.  Like we do with
lib-src/movemail, for example.  (For some reason, ISTR I already said
that as well.)