[[!meta title="How Emacs made me appreciate software freedom"]] [[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2021 Protesilaos Stavrou"]] [[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/freedom-nav)" raw="yes"]] # How Emacs made me appreciate software freedom Protesilaos Stavrou [[!taglink CategoryPhilosophy]] [[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/freedom-schedule)" raw="yes"]] The theme will be "how Emacs empowered my software freedom". I will outline the key moments in my transition to a GNU/Linux operating system and mark those which eventually contributed towards me becoming an Emacs user, maintainer of a—dare I say—popular package, and contributor to upstream Emacs (among others). By alluding to personal experiences, I will draw generalisable insights and connect them to what I believe are irreducible qualities of Emacs qua software and Emacs as a community of like-minded people. The talk will be theoretical in nature: there won't be any code-related demonstration nor technical references that only people with a background in computer science would likely recognise. Personal anecdotes shall be tangential to the point and considered as ancillary to the thesis of what Emacs represents from the standpoint of software freedom and user empowerment. The presentation is intended for a general audience that is interested in GNU software in general and Emacs in particular. My formal educational background as a social scientist (i.e. not a programmer) and later as a philosopher informs my approach to this topic. The presentation shall be 40 minutes long. Its text will be in essay form and shall be supplied as complementary material to the video. The notation will be in Org mode. I cannot provide an outline in advance, as it will most likely not be consistent with the actual presentation. If, however, this is absolutely required for administrative purposes I shall furnish one regardless with the proviso that I am in no way bound by it and thus reserve the right to modify it ahead of the main event. # Discussion Questions: - Q1:  (Unrelated, feel free not to answer): Is there an Emacs or GNU/FSF group in Cyprus? I know it's a politically motivated country, with a strong student-base, so I'm interested whether the Emacs circles and political circles have any overlap. - Q2: What do you think is the most effecitve way to demonstrate the value of software freedom to non-techincal people? For a person who can't program (or doesn't want to learn) the freedom seems less immediate. - Q3: your quote "emacs makes emergent workflow's possible" reminds me very much of the previous talk (Emacs as Design Pattern Learning). Can you share/reflect how you go about making/designing your personal workflows? - are "Prometheas" & "Prometheus" both forms acceptable? Is one "truer" than the other? - protesilaos: Both are correct. The former is modern Greek. Other notes: - Emacs documentation is first class. - Emacs is inclusive to both new users and experienced users alike, which empowers all users. - Knowledge is to be shared not hoarded.. - Emacs is an ecosystem you have to spend a lot of time with to fully appreciate. Feedback: - "I'll definitly use this talk to try to convert more colleagues :D (not joking)" - Wow, you phrased prometheus bit that excellently! - wow great point on new users being enticed by the "easy productivity" angle - I want to be productive, so give me this really complicated tool with countless high-level functions so I can get stuff done ASAP. bit of a paradox, really. very well said. - what a well thought-through and well prepared talk. really appreciating this! - you can't be an emacs tourist because IT SUCKS YOU IN AND DOESN'T LET GO - protesilaos is a gift to the community - i really appreciate prot's point right here: emacs is "free software" in the strongest sense of the word, from a practical point of a view since even if another program is libre, its usually so darn complicated that the freedom to modify the program is pretty useless since i'm not smart enough to do it - the nuance brought by protesilaos between ellitism and exigence is very good. [[!inline pages="internal(2021/captions/freedom)" raw="yes"]] [[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/freedom-nav)" raw="yes"]]