rms@AI.MIT.EDU (10/16/89)
Some people seem to have a mistaken idea of the purpose of info-gnu-emacs (and its repeater newsgroup, gnu.emacs). We (the FSF) set up this mailing list, and later its associated repeater newsgroup, for a specific purpose: to send announcements and questions from the FSF to the users of GNU Emacs. These announcements say what the FSF is doing and why. In effect, info-gnu-emacs is an on-line newsletter of the FSF. The GNU project is technical project with a social/political purpose. Therefore, some of our announcements are technical and some are political. In other words, our newsletters have editorials as well as technical articles. We also have a "letter column" (gnu.misc.discuss) where other people can send letters on the relevant social issues, including letters of disagreement. Some people are familiar with other mailing lists and/or newsgroups that exist for other purposes, such as technical discussion; so they assume that info-gnu-emacs should be like them. I can see how people might have got this impression, but it just isn't accurate. A few of these people think they are entitled to tell us what we are or are not supposed to use our mailing list for. They are saying, in effect, that we aren't allowed to have editorials in our newsletter. There is no reason for the FSF to obey these people, and we will not. It is natural that some people like only the FSF's technical work, and wish that the FSF were a politically neutral technical organization. But the FSF is an organization for social change, and we will not be silenced on that subject.