So instead of using the native font rendering on OS X which they had actually done, they suggest installing a secondary font which doesn't work as well to fix the problem they created by disabling the working font rendering?
I understand the reason why they did it. I understand your view of why it should be done.
I'd be A LOT more sympathetic if they hadn't been shipping it working for two years. At that point it's a little late to put the horse back in the barn.
Some of Stallmans list seems insane to me. They withheld accurate scrolling until all the other platforms had it? They are crippling font rendering to the lowest common denominator? They don't want background transparency on OS X because what is ostensibly a console program doesn't have it on other OSs?
This is the kind of stuff that "free software" people do that turns off normal people. I do understand some features. I can see why they wouldn't want to use the system spellchecker if they didn't have a spellchecker on other platforms. Very significant features like that that really could divide the platform makes some sense to me.
But breaking font rendering? Making scrolling work worse? Not having some generic cosmetic effects like background transparency? That seems way too dogmatic.
Worse is that Stallmans email seems to imply that some of the things that they held back on OS X should have been available for a while, but no one was keeping track of when the free platforms caught up to parity. Does that mean it's possible that OS X could have supported something to years ago, doesn't have it today, but Linux has had it for a year? If you're going to impose a rule like that you should be tracking it.
I would instead see at is making font rendering work equally across platforms.
> Making scrolling work worse?
Again, making scrolling work equally across platforms.
> Not having some generic cosmetic effects like background transparency?
Again, equally.
I am more than a little surprised that this is so surprising to people...it seems rather par for the course for GNU philosophy.
If you truly want to make a platform agnostic piece of software, then you end up limiting yourself to the "lowest common denominator".
People seem to have gotten used to the presumption that if you want to make software, you have to make platform specific versions for the best user experience. Want to write a mobile application? Well the best user experience comes from "native" apps...so you should make one specifically for iOS and then one specifically for Android.
That. Is. A. Huge. Problem. (*at least in the eyes of GNU)
And in principle I agree most of the time. Locked/incentivized eco-systems lead to the dominance of a few "popular" platforms as choosing which platforms to support (as a developer) becomes a function of market coverage. This has been demonstrated time and time again for better and for worse...although usually the latter.
So yes, GNU can be kind of extreme into their adherence to their core philosophies...but, honestly, I don't think this is a "fight" (so-to-speak) that can be made with half measures and exceptions.
So they aren't so much sabotaging Emacs when it is on Mac, they are just refusing to utilize platform specific APIs and tools. Again...see my first comment.
Yeah. I'm sure everyone's happy with that answer.