David's World

May 5, 2005

AquaMacs Emacs 0.9.1 is out

After way too many hours of messing around and hacking Emacs - both on the C source code level and via the built-in Elisp language - I've finished AquaMacs Emacs 0.9.1. It's a vastly improved Emacs for Mac OS X, as Kevin Walzer and I think, providing a better user experience especially for people that work with a lot of different applications on OS X. Kevin has been doing a great job in helping people with their little issues so far, and in promoting the project - I've been keeping with the technical side of things.

Well, Mac OS X is not GNU, and working towards a better user interface can be a tough job if you're dealing with long-term developers (and also veteran users), who are used to a very specific mode of interacting with the editor. Hell, they use Emacs to read their e-mail and newsgroups! In principle, the Emacs modules replace multiple applications - it's a cosmos on it's own.

Emacs develops have been surprisingly upbeat about improving UI things. When it comes to actually making technical changes, debate is more heated and morale low. But who can blame them - augmenting 20-year-old architecture that started before real graphical UIs were invented is hard. And Richard Stallman, one of the founders of Emacs, free-software evangelist and philosopher who is to be honored greatly for starting the free software movement? In early April, Stallman said about the AquaMacs OS X efforts:

The purpose of Emacs is to enhance the GNU operating system of which
it is part, and thus to contribute to the liberation of computer users
from non-free software.

Mac OS is a non-free operating system. Viewed amorally, as mere
technology, it may be useful; but it is fundamentally unethical.
Our goal is to replace it with free software, not to enhance it.
To produce "successful OS X software" is a distraction from the goal.

So I have to think about whether it's right to do something for an intermediate system, until the free software community has come up with usable (UI) operating systems and stable applications. And maybe I'm going to have to pray a rosary or two because I'm a sinner. Oh, I forgot. I don't believe.

Download AquaMacs Emacs 0.9.1 for Mac OS X here.

I think he's a really admirable guy whose done a tremendous amount of good, but I have to disagree with RMS's stance regarding OS X.

(1) One's choice of OS is not solely an ethical question, but a practical one as well. Yes, the world would probably be a better place if more of us insisted on free software. However, some functionality can only be achieved with a particular bit of software, and if that software is not free (or relies on un-free software) then it's perfectly reasonable for one to use it, as long as death and suffering are not a consequence of the choice. I mean, seriously, who is starving because we have a Windows PC at home?

(2) From a practical and strategic point of view, it makes sense to port GNU Emacs to any and all operating systems where it can be used fruitfully.

Diehard Emacs users like myself often have little choice as to what OS they use, but do have the option of running Emacs (e.g. thank heavens for Emacs on MS Windows!) What's wrong with making an OS that feels 'foreign' feel more like 'home,' as long as one cannot use the OS of their choice?

In addition, porting GNU Emacs to different, non-free operating systems is good PR for the free operating systems. While not highly likely, it's possible that GNU Emacs could act as a "gateway drug" to free operating systems such as Linux, Free-/Net-/Open-BSD, etc.

While I don't disagree that ethics should play a part in the selection of software, including operating systems, to make it the *only* consideration seems...unbalanced.

I think people have a tendency to over-interpret what RMS says sometimes. He has clear ideas about what he, his projects, and his foundation are about. For example they want to replace OS X. That doesn't imply things like "no one should use OS X", simply that, as he says, work on enhanced OS X emacs does not necessarily forward that goal.

Of course you'd really have to do an analysis of how much extra productivity people get using an enhanced OS X emacs, and how much THAT translates into additional work on free software projects. Barring that, it's easier to conclude that work on GNU emacs itself, along with the free OS X alternative GNUstep and other projects, is going to help the FSF's overall goals more.

So, I doubt RMS would disagree with (1) or (2) above -- but he does make himself kind of an easy target for bashing by being such a where-it-on-your-shirt idealist..