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Comment by satysin | Hacker News Reader

Surprised to see the demo videos were captured on OS X and not GNU/Linux.

The emacsrocks videos existed before the website refresh and weren't created for gnu.org, but I can imagine Richard asking for new videos to advertise the GNU platform instead.

Yeah this is what I figured, still kind of surprised to see the new site go live with them. It isn't all that difficult to make a simple screencast on Linux to show off some of the basics.

I just wanted to be annoying: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html

Call it GNU or call it Linux. GNU/Linux is just stupid

To solve that problem, I always call it GLinux but the 'G' is silent.

The G in GNU isn't silent. :P

The G in glinux is!

Call it by the distribution name. Calling debian and android by the same name is silly if the only common software is the kernel and a bunch of universal tools and libraries.

I don't know about Android but it's not silly at all to call Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu by a common name. I do it all the time.

Ubuntu is a Debian-based operative system. Using the name "Debian" for both makes perfect good sense.

Fedora, i.e. Red Hat, is very distinct from Debian. A Debian software package is not guaranteed to work on Fedora, nor is a Red Hat package guaranteed to work in Debian. Both try to be semi-compatible with each other, but that does not make them identical.

A common name used in the past is "Unix" or "Unix compatible", but then what is not Unix compatible today? We could be talking about Linux compatible, but then, the vast majority of programs will work on BSD kernel as well as Linux kernels, while having stronger compatibility demands on distribution-specific technology. Maybe "systemd" or "systemd compatible" should be the new OS name?

If you tell me the distribution of your OS, it will tell me enough information to make or identify compatible software. What property is more important than that in a name?

ok I'll remember it for the next time I chat with you. But come on dude, most people don't care about the distribution I use, knowing that I use Linux (the OS, not the kernel) and not Windows or OSX is what they want to know. All the rest is literature. Really.

Okay. Debian GNU/Linux. Fedora GNU/Linux. openSUSE GNU/Linux.

> I can imagine Richard asking for new videos to advertise the GNU platform instead.

Me too. He often asks for corrections in light of these types of oversights (at least, it looks like an oversight to me).

Maybe he'll only get half as upset because of OSX's Darwin base

He will more likely beat them to death.

I'm surprised they weren't captured from within Emacs using some janky elisp video encoder.

Someone went for quality and not purity, actually picking interesting videos instead of clips of someone describing the basics in a monotone.

As someone browsing hn in emacs atm, I chuckled.

Using eww? If not, are you using a mode that allows you to both read and post comments? I didn't find any so I was considering writing one, but if you already solved the problem for me, I'd love to hear about it.

Yup, but the main screenshot looks like Gnome, so I think it actually works quite well to show how cross platform Emacs is.

Hmm, I'm not so sure that's what the intention is. The FSF is adamant that non-free software should not be promoted if there is a free equivalent that can do the same thing. So I'm also surprised that OS X features prominently, like this, on the front page.

This is nothing, what about attending FOSDEM and seeing the majority carrying iDevices?

Your comment made me look again at the list of FSF endorsed OSs:

http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html

I'm still surprised at how few there are.

http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html

This explains why many are not considered free, though the summary could simply be "the Linux kernel contains non-free blobs" and "they haven't promised not to allow non-free in their package repo's"

I've seen that a lot in Emacs videos and screenshots, the last few years.

Even in videos and screenshots that are endorsed by the FSF? I find that hard to believe.

Believing in things nobody actually said is of variable difficulty.

But of course screenshots and videos made in OS X are available, especially considering Emacs has been running on that OS since forever. The point of interest here is that it's on an FSF website. Otherwise I don't see why you would even bother to point it out.

1) I'm an Emacs user and enthusiast.

2) I look into a lot of videos about Emacs.

3) I've noticed that, recently, many of these videos and screenshots are by people using OS X.

4) Someone wondered about an OS X video on the Emacs site.

5) I pointed out #3.

I hope that with the change of maintainer we, emacs users, can have some sanity regarding that concern and avoid the "emacs as a trojan horse so everyone switches to gnu" mentality.

The videos are from emacsrocks.com, not from the GNU website itself.

Not too surprising, OSX is a common platform for devs who are linux/unix-oriented but want a high-level OS with all the sleek GUIs and mainstream features. OSX is a certified Unix OS, after all, so it tends to speak to emacs users in a way that you won't typically find among the Windows base.

Yes Unix is not Linux, but I see OSX widely used at hackathons and conferences because of its underpinnings.

One of the points of FSF is to never use closed software. OSX is not GPL.

Makes me wonder why they have compatibility shims to allow their website show in browers like IE6...

Yes, it's pedantic, but this GNU we are speaking about.

That would actually make sense. It might help more people see the light.

Really? You think if I recommend emacs to someone using IE6 and they go view the site and it fails to display, that will somehow make them 'see the light'? I suspect the complete opposite is true and, hence, why gnu support browsers that aren't 100% GPLed.

Nobody is saying that it is practical, but GNU aren't known to make their stance on practicalities alone. GNU are known for their ideological purity, and a lot of people (some even quite grudgingly) admire them for their consistent stance.

I'm sure they've addressed this very issue. They almost certainly just write to the standards and don't bother putting in any browser-specific hacks, which is pretty much the best way to do things anyway, IMHO.

I saw at least one IE6 specific hack in their pages.

You seem to be in agreement with the person you're replying to. They're saying that there's a compatibility shim so that more IE6 users can 'see the light'.

Well, to get picky about it, I believe the exception is that it's ok to use it while a non-closed alternative is in the works. I think the example Stallman uses in his talks is that of software controlling a life saving medical device.

Obviously the use case in point doesn't come under that though. :)

"Free" does not mean "GPL" only. If OSX were released under any of the many free licenses it would be fine, but sadly it is just proprietary software with some free components.

I think the OP's point was more targeted toward the fact that OSX is a non-free operating system, and Emacs is part of the GNU project.

Yes. I doubt that somebody who was so close to the GNU project as to have authorization to change the main Emacs website wouldn't know about this. Clearly it's just a simple mistake, easily fixed.

The issue is not that the OS is not Linux, it's that the OS is not free

What kind of video capture options does a hurd user have available.

Most likely they were created by the one who made the website, which most likely used OS X like most designers :p

Designers rarely make a website - they just design it.

With explanations like this, guinea pigs could fly.

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