Re: Supporting non-free SQL clients in ob-sql (was: [PATCH] ob-sql: Add support for Athena)

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Would it then make sense to note the reasons why we support one or
  > another non-free software in a separate file like etc/NON-FREE-SUPPORT?

I think it is a good idea to document the reasoning for these
decision.  But I think it does not necessarily have to be centralized
in one file for all of Emacs.  Another alternative, also natural,
would be to describe these decisions with the code that implements the
support.

  > Also, what about Emacs supporting MS DOS and old versions of Windows? Do
  > they still qualify as popular software?

There is no need to include version numbers when we judge whether a
program is well known.  People are far more likely to think about a
program name than about its various version numbers.

If a program was once well known, but its use is dwindling, it's not
something we have to worry about informing people about.  More people
will have heard of it in the past, than will want to switch to it now.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)