xemacs vs emacs

[David Kastrup]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

> Reiner Steib writes:
>  > On Fri, Apr 04 2008, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>  > 
>  > > However, most third-party projects such as Gnus, CEDET, and AUCTeX
>  > > continue to support XEmacs, 
>  > 
>  > Well, for Gnus and AUCTeX "support" is more like "don't break
>  > compatibility with XEmacs deliberately".  Both projects have no active
>  > developers doing much more than cursory testing on XEmacs.
>
> I call that support, given that we're hardly doing any more at the
> moment.  We are very grateful for the efforts you do make, and you
> respond very quickly when XEmacs developers or users have questions or
> problems.

Somebody has to pick up the slack.

>  > But even the versions in "pre-release" are outdated.
>
> Keeping up-to-date is a non-goal for the core developers.

It is a non-goal, but a frequent advertising item.  Which I find kind of
distasteful.

>  > AUCTeX
>
> AUCTeX is a special case; the AUCTeX project maintainer objects to the
> XEmacs package system in principle (although he, and the project, has
> always been good about supporting XEmacs users of AUCTeX).

Stephen, when you feel yourself unable to utter anything which can't be
in good conscience supported by a shred of evidence, please just keep
quiet.

This is actually slander and I am quite annoyed at your frequent
repetition of such stuff.  The AUCTeX project actually _provides_ a
perfectly working and reasonably maintained XEmacs package _for_ the
XEmacs package system, which the _XEmacs_ team _refuses_ to distribute
for, well, matters of principle, citing quality concern policies (never
mind that their quality control leads to several year old packages with
faulty XEmacs integration being distributed rather than working packages
from upstream).

And I've gone out of my way to help XEmacs developers understand the
AUCTeX structure, providing example versions, providing information
about the setup, explaining every bit of it and supporting them wherever
I could.

What I won't do is to change AUCTeX's build infrastructure into one
supporting XEmacs-only, depending on XEmacs CVS access and being
developed in the XEmacs package repository.

Making AUCTeX work for XEmacs and within the XEmacs package tree and
supporting XEmacs developers for getting it into their system in a
manner where they don't need to adapt sane policies for external package
development has been a resource drain for AUCTeX development.

Against all the sabotage of the XEmacs policy setters, we have prevailed
for the sake of XEmacs users to provide a working setup for them.  And
there has been more than one time where I (and others) have made sure
that XEmacs compatibility (which often is a major PITA because the
XEmacs core code base is not even up to Emacs 22.1 level consistently)
does not go off the radar.

It is fine that you have repeatedly stated that helping AUCTeX get into
XEmacs proper is not a priority for you.  But please stop actively
sabotaging the support from others, and if it is only by spreading lies
and derogatory remarks about their efforts.

It is enough work supporting XEmacs and XEmacs users against the general
XEmacs apathy and your passive resistance without you spitting on us.
So again: if you don't have anything positive to contribute, just shut
up instead of denigrating the efforts of those that actually _do_
contribute.

The job of a project leader as I understand it does not consist of
keeping the obituaries pretty and the blame assigned elsewhere.  It
means keeping the development going or saying or doing those things that
support it.  If you feel that this is not what you can or should care
about, maybe you should look for somebody else taking up the place at
the helm, so that you can write your opinion pieces from a position
where they cause less damage to XEmacs.

Thanks.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum