incredible take from one of the GNU maintainers, seriously
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@ariadne
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2026-11/msg00126.html
The response came from Eli Zaretskii, one GNU maintainer, who is an asshole. A zealot with a narrow minded view of the ethics that should be employed for emacs development, prizing above all else the avoidance of community fracture, even at the cost of basic morals. He doesn't speak for all.
@bit ok, i don't really see the point of your reply here, but sure
@ariadne Yikes. I honestly can't think of a more introductory ethics principle than "Legal =/= Ethical"
Literally. Walk in, sit down, "okay, class..." and that's the exact thing you'd start with.
@ariadne That is par for the course, just like the paragraph after:
> Any other answer is a first step towards splitting our community along
the many lines of political and ideological divides
The implication that answering yes to slave labor for the benefit of GNU would expectedly be unquestionable and unanimously agreeable is baffling, but also very much expected from GNU.
Still, people better not start calling them a death cult, what next? Acknowledge the fact that they put the project above everything and everyone else? Worship a single man as their prophet? Claiming that they would be willing to sacrifice humanity to save some crumbling software? Crazy talk. Conspiracy theory. It is heretic to have such thoughts about pillars of FOSS. To question GNU is akin to question the entire temple.
And yet, in a hypothetical example: if they found out one of 8 billion people has magic blood that can be used in a ritual to elevate any GNU project to never before achieved potential, and they knew that person is not RMS, would they kill 8 billion people to find the right one? Their answer must be YES.
@ariadne I recall a friend that submitted a bug patch to a project. They wanted him to agree to the "code of conduct" before accepting it. He refused. Why should he agree to be bound by anything? He found the bug, made the patch and gave it to the community under public domain. The "community" would not accept the fix.
This sounds like a more extreme version of this. While obviously I don't agree with slavery, code is code and does not and should not care about the life of the contributor.
WTAF!
Would love to find out who the moronic c**t is, that penned that utter fucking horseshit.
@ariadne
Given that North Korea exists, the idea of software being produced by forced labour is far from hypothetical, I would say.
@ariadne Doubling down, too.
"If we start talking about genocide, that's bad, let's brush it all aside! Don't mix sport and politics!"
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2026-11/msg00201.html
@richlv @ariadne I have contracts with companies which require suppliers to follow terms like (quoting Merck KGaA):
Suppliers shall ensure that no form of forced, bonded, indentured, or involuntary labor is used. In particular, Suppliers shall act in accordance with
• Art. 2 (2) of Convention No. 29 of the ILO and
• Art. 8 (3) (b) and (c) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
This would mean slaveemacs would be prohibited by anyone working at or for Merck (including me), or any other organization with similar rules, on top of those who would be morally opposed to using or contributing to software built by slave labor. This would of course be a death blow to the free software movement, which would become identified as "free as in the free labor of slaves".
@ariadne
Woa, these people have some severe issues. Are they just stupid or crazy?
@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
Isn’t the “hypothetical example” the definition of Work?
@skeyby work generally is voluntary in exchange for money
@ariadne wait, wat
"must be YES"? is someone forcing the GNU project to accept all legally-valid contributions?
what kind of weak-ass nonsense is that
like regardless of what you feel about LLMs, it is very easy to just do/say anything other than "contributions resulting from slavery are good, actually"
@ariadne I feel that’s the point. There are mountains of tech people salivating at the restoration of slavery.
And it would be, because at some point people would start to be managed through LLM’s. But at that point the bros are already referring to and treating these machines as slaves.
What that will do to our society will not be pretty. No terminology borrowed from slavery should ever be used, not even for machines, because of what it will do to us!
Note that he clearly doesn't state that they are good.
@ariadne FWIW, The Nuremberg trials or vegans had/have to constantly deal with this question and drew the boundary between "I'm merely benefiting" vs "I'm actively encouraging it".
Basically you have three options accept it/ask for changes/reject it. Changes are out of the question since you are encouraging slavery.
The correct response* is to accept the contribution and inform the contributor that no further such contribution will be accepted so the harm has not been done in vain.
@ariadne can there be one CLI-based text editor that isn't maintained by chuds
heck, can there be one LSP-compatible text editor, full stop, that isn't maintained by chuds
deep sigh am I gonna have to learn KATE
@ariadne Somehow I am not surprized. Somehow.
@ariadne huh, so that settles vim vs emacs then
![illy [Shrimple-mode] :protomoji_orange_flag_lesbian:](https://shrimp.imsofucking.gay/files/public-5f69c6f8-29ee-4ab8-b7ba-9347e0f2dc6c.webp "illy [Shrimple-mode] :protomoji_orange_flag_lesbian:")
@wall_e@ioc.exchange @ariadne@treehouse.systems both lose!
![Lambda Crime [The Möth Society]](https://media.wetdry.world/accounts/avatars/112/982/397/274/118/763/original/091e2dea1f7f4b39.png "Lambda Crime [The Möth Society]")
@illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e new editor war: nano vs ed
@16af93 @illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e ed wins by default as nano is GNU and also ed is no joke more usable once you gets its logic. Unlike nano which is like "oh ho ho this extremely common keybinding for cutting text actually quits the program! this is so easy", ed is more like "all your prior computing knowledge is void now so don't you dare feel safe!"
@librarysquirrel @16af93 @illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e cat | cc and get it right the first time
@davidgerard @librarysquirrel @16af93 @illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e
Any true hacker, etc.
@ariadne i mean i see the point :p
not like not using products from such labour will auto magically change evil laws