Re: [ELPA] New package: repology.el

[Jean Louis]

* Clément Pit-Claudel <cpitclaudel@gmail.com> [2020-12-31 00:02]:
> On 12/30/20 2:34 PM, Jean Louis wrote:
> > While I may find that package personally useful for research of
> > various packages on multiple OS distributions, it is not for GNU ELPA,
> > IMHO, as GNU is all about free software and teaching people about free
> > software.
> 
> By the same logic, eww is not for GNU ELPA or Emacs, since it allows
> people to browse the web without displaying license information.

I am trying to get what you mean, but it looks like I cannot. Maybe
you quoted one part of text or let some other part out so that I
cannot connect the dots.

Browsers offer access to networks but not specific references to non
free software. GNU project should not deliver browser that offers
direct reference to a database of free software.

If users do it themselves, they are free to do so, just as users are
free to install proprietary software on GNU/Linux, those are private
issues that are actually beyond GNU.  GNU project is not about
forbidding users do what they wish.

GNU teaches users free software philosophy. Putting a package in GNU
ELPA that does not make ethical distinction would be contrary to what
is already being done in GNU and in FSF.

GNU project teaches users about free software. It points out to
problems with proprietary software.

It does not and should not serve as a platform or access to platform
for users of free software to search, find references to software
without ethical distinction.

Repology.org and package repology.el is contradiction to what GNU and
FSF efforts are about. We teach users distinction between free
software and proprietary software, and we tell people WHY.

Please see the Free Software Directory:
https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page

It is directory of free software.

What I would not find logical is that we do not have GNU ELPA package
that provides API to Free Software Directory.  But we would then have
repology.org package that provides API to software without ethical
distinction, be it proprietary or free software or software with
unclear licensing, it does not matter there.

> Also, repology itself is GNU GPL.

We discussed already that GNU GPL software may be ethical and not
ethical. For example malware, viruses and backdoors can be also
licensed as GNU GPL software but are not ethical. GNU GPL software may
control or be made exclusively to work with proprietary
software. It may provide access to search engine that provides
information about software without ethical distinction if it is free
software or proprietary.

All those are examples showing how GNU GPL licensed software may not
fulfill my personal ethical criteria. As this message is my personal
opinion.