> Some of the ideas found in these distributions may well merit inclusion in Emacs, but that does not happen.
Spacemacs isn't an Emacs fork, it's a set of packages and configuration files that are provided transparently on top of an existing Emacs install.
It's not necessary (or desirable) to include Evil mode out of the box for bare-bones Emacs installs, and for the most part, new users shouldn't be using bare-bones Emacs installs. It's not important that Emacs be an amazing experience with fantastic defaults out-of-the-box.
This is like arguing that Linux is outdated because Gnome isn't built into the kernel. New users download a distro based on Linux, like Ubuntu. That's fine, it's not a problem that needs to be solved.
In the same way, new Emacs users download "distros" that include secondary packages like Evil mode. That is also fine, it's not a problem that needs to be solved.
> Emacs maintainer Eli Zaretskii complained that the creators of these distributions do not contribute their work back.
Even assuming that we would want to merge Spacemacs changes into the core Emacs codebase (which we don't), I still have zero sympathy on this point.
All of these downstream projects are Open Source -- they are contributing their work back. If the FSF refuses to merge compatible, Open Source code back into the Emacs codebase without developers signing away their ownership, that's the FSF's problem, not the downstream developer's.
I thought the whole point of Open Source licensing was that people didn't need to own the code to use it. Being a good Open Source community member is not conditional on anybody giving ownership of their code to the FSF, it is conditional on releasing that code under Open, compatible licenses.
Spacemacs isn't an Emacs fork, it's a set of packages and configuration files that are provided transparently on top of an existing Emacs install.
It's not necessary (or desirable) to include Evil mode out of the box for bare-bones Emacs installs, and for the most part, new users shouldn't be using bare-bones Emacs installs. It's not important that Emacs be an amazing experience with fantastic defaults out-of-the-box.
This is like arguing that Linux is outdated because Gnome isn't built into the kernel. New users download a distro based on Linux, like Ubuntu. That's fine, it's not a problem that needs to be solved.
In the same way, new Emacs users download "distros" that include secondary packages like Evil mode. That is also fine, it's not a problem that needs to be solved.
> Emacs maintainer Eli Zaretskii complained that the creators of these distributions do not contribute their work back.
Even assuming that we would want to merge Spacemacs changes into the core Emacs codebase (which we don't), I still have zero sympathy on this point.
All of these downstream projects are Open Source -- they are contributing their work back. If the FSF refuses to merge compatible, Open Source code back into the Emacs codebase without developers signing away their ownership, that's the FSF's problem, not the downstream developer's.
I thought the whole point of Open Source licensing was that people didn't need to own the code to use it. Being a good Open Source community member is not conditional on anybody giving ownership of their code to the FSF, it is conditional on releasing that code under Open, compatible licenses.