mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[M Singh <address@hidden>]

On Wednesday 09 February 2005 15:58, Stephane Popinet wrote:

> Although I tend to agree that the issues you mention are all important,
> I also think you may be mistaken in your conception of how free software
> works. This may be an explanation of why texmacs developers think you
> are "being unappreciative of the effort put into developing texmacs".

Oh, I am not. I have myself released (much smaller in scope, but equally 
useful in their way) LGPL'ed pieces of work.

>
> Free software is not a "product". As a user, you cannot "request" that
> some feature be included. You are welcome to "suggest" that some feature
> would be nice/useful/absolutely necessary. This is different.

And the difference between a request and a suggestion is ? Both are 
non-binding.

>
> If the developers do not agree with you, tell you that they have other
> priorities etc... you have another option: doing it yourself. For a

True. But what do you do if your expertise lies in coding fortran and 
conceiving of experiments and not hardcore C/C++ coding or writing editors ?

You can then only propose certain changes based on your experience and hope 
that your arguments would carry some weight with the developers.