news.ycombinator.com
Highlights:
$ git shortlog -sne --since '3 years ago' 1298 Benno Schulenberg > 64 Chris Allegretta > 6 Jordi Mallach > 3 Mike Frysinger > 3 Mike Scalora > 2 Rishabh Dave >
So GNU nano technically still exists, but Benno Schulenberg (seemingly the most significant contributor, see git output above) has forked it into his own project.
If he wants to fork it that's fine, but hiding what's going on is a shitty move.
(((Schulenberg)))
It has to still use the GNU GPL though. So they're basically saying that it's not GNU in name? Because I thought anybody could call their project GNU if it was protected by GNU GPL (Notepad++ comes to mind).
Haha suck shit GNU/FSF.
Muh freedom, but you must abide by all these arbitrary policies, and assign your copyright to our organisation.
Nope. GNU is a project to create an operating system and assorted software. The GPL and its variations are part of it, and most GNU programs use one of those, but not all of them do and not all software with a GPL license is part of GNU.
gnu.org
You don't have to assign copyright to FSF.
If you don't, though, you're on your own for license enforcement. The reason FSF requires copyright assignment for enforcing licenses is because in some jurisdictions enforcing the license requires the entity to have been assigned copyright.
There are GNU projects that don't assign copyright for enforcement and they're still a GNU project.
Good job not knowing what you're talking about, you fucking retard.
That's not necessarily true, specifically due to
Since it looks like a majority of the code was written by him, if he kept the copyright he has the right to change the license at will, he would just have to remove the code not written by him.
But you do, at least for major FSF projects like GCC which you'd know if you'd ever made any significant contribution. They do it so they can fix license issues like the ones Linux is stuck with as they have no way of ever re-licensing a lot of that code.
That was a decision made by maintainers before you. There are no requirements for copyright assignment for a project to become a GNU project, though, if they don't want to and GNU offers. That's entirely a decision that can be made by all those whose copyright is involved.
So no, you were wrong, now fuck off.
Oh I missed that. I recognized he wrote most of it, but I didn't know that the license was also his call. That changes everything.
...
Why is Nano development still even a thing? Shit was /done/ when it replaced Pico.
First link in the OP
some of them not so little. It improves moving about in
the file browser, corrects failings of the internal spell
checker, adds a new feature (comment/uncomment lines, with
default binding M-3), makes some error messages clearer,
shows more of a file when positionlog is used and the cursor
is near the end, displays all error messages at startup if
there are multiple ones, does not misinterpret keystrokes
when typing very fast, is less eager to trim the filename
on narrow terminals, speeds up case-insensitive searches,
and allows to abort re-searches. Among bunches of other
things. It is worth the trouble to upgrade.
He would have the right to change the license of his own code, but not the license of the program as a whole. He would have to license his own code GPL-compatible (and it would be de facto GPL) unless he gets it separate from and working without all the code he didn't write.
1298 commits in the last 3 years is an awful lot for something that had no legitimate reason to be modified in the past 10 years. Pico didn't need to keep having shit added to it as it filled its niche as UNIX's notepad and knew where to stop. Why the fuck does it have a file browser and spell checker? Jesus.
Because they're useful.
Is it really that hard to understand why you'd want a spell checker in a program designed for writing mail?
Christ, this place really is autism central sometimes. It's not an advanced file browser, it just lets you navigate directories and select files. You really can't fathom why someone would want to have the ability to select a file in a program whose purpose is to edit files?
who gives a shit? the point of nano is that it has few features.
this may be news to you but any text editor can compose mail. the only point of nano is that it doesn't introduce extraneous confusion, which is the antithesis of adding features.
The point of nano is to "emulate Pico as closely as possible and perhaps include extra functionality".
Pico is not just a text editor that can compose mail, it's a text editor that's part of a mail system. Spell checking is within its scope.
Thanks captain autism, fact remains nobody cares if it can spell check or not.
Except the people that want that feature
There's no reason to have multi-document support in an editor whose role is to be the most basic of basic editors for those who have not yet chosen a default. And without that there is no reason to have file selection of any kind.
[citation needed]
I think the nano changelog is a little misleading. As far as I can tell, nano doesn't actually have a built-in spellchecker. It relies on an external package called "spell", or you can specify an alternative on the command line or with an environment variable.
meant to reply to too
That was why udubs did pico, because elm with no editor configured would send users to vi and it was melting the brains of those outside the CS department. They wanted a more appropriate default.
Citation me, as I'm fucking old and used to use elm before pine came to be.
why does this site attract so many masochists
...
You have to be to still visit a site with an uptime of 75℅ at best.
What work is there really to be done with Nano anyway? It's one of the most basic text editors in existence.
...
btw
> 1298 Benno Schulenberg >
> 481 David Lawrence Ramsey >
> 382 Chris Allegretta >
> 28 Jordi Mallach >
> 3 Mike Frysinger >
> 3 Mike Scalora >
> 2 Rishabh Dave >
> 2528 David Lawrence Ramsey >
> 1298 Benno Schulenberg >
> 803 Chris Allegretta >
> 355 Jordi Mallach >
> 3 Mike Frysinger >
> 3 Mike Scalora >
> 2 Rishabh Dave >
> 1 Rocco Corsi >
Why are you assuming they were inconsequential?
Because it's fucking nano, and it was already functional before his first commit.
It is nano. What the hell could he have added? Why is this piece of shit even still under development? Does GNU ed still get updates? .
Undo/redo, syntax coloring, bugfixes, linting and spelling, customizable keybindings, paging (reading from stdin instead of a file), soft line wrapping, warnings for lack of write permission and external modification, UTF-8 support...
I don't know how much of that he did, I just read the overviews since version 2.0.
syntax?! linting!? CUSTOMIZABLE WHAT? CUSTOMIZABLE FUCKING KEYBINDINGS. FOR A PICO "WHAT IS THIS DOS THING" CLONE?
ugh. ugh. This guy thinks it's a real editor. Not even Microsoft thought that notepad.exe was any good. It was famously worse than an editor you could put together with built-in widgets in some of their toolkits.
and the bugs were part of the charm. It was how you knew to install a real editor ASAP. I liked how the vi mode was especially shit.
Update from Allegretta
What is the point of adding more features to nano? Isn't nano supposed to be the small editor for quick and simple edits? If you want linters, spell checkers and all sorts of other features just use (Neo)vim or Emacs. Is nano trying to create an unholy union of Emacs and vi?
These features don't stop it from being useful for quick and simple edits. But with them, you get a reasonably powerful editor with a really low learning curve.
Oy vey how terrible, a guy wants to actually be credited for his work instead of giving it to the (((organization))).
homosexual
the saddest thing about how copyright = credit, is that business owners keep forgetting why they even have programmers. "what do you mean, you guys wrote this? says right here that it was all me!"
I think most GNU projects work that way, he certainly knew it. From the OP, it seems he owned the Nano website and modified it - that's shitty because people will confuse it with the upstream project, GNU Nano.
I can't really understand what you're saying, but contracts usually have programmers give their work copyright to their employers. I'd say it's reasonable, you don't want to pay for code for it to be released publicly or used in other companies.
this
as pointed out, not all GNU projects and their contributors assign copyright to the FSF.
just using a GNU license doesn't make your project part of the GNU project.
GNU allows their licenses to be used by others in the hope that they will be useful to them and that the number of available free software will increase.
why would a random shit fuck be entitled to have his patches accepted if he doesn't abide by the project guidelines? Free software gives you the freedom to cooperate with other, not the power to force them to cooperate with you.
Not everyone is autistic enough to use Vim or Emacs.
javascript devs are "vim ninjas".
Your argument is invalid.
Javascript devs use notepad++ and feces smeared on walls. They're almost the least likely of any "programmer" to know how to use vi.
You're out of touch, user. "ninja" is even their word.
nano is for faggots who can't memorize 10 basic vi commands
emacs -nw is heaven tbh fam
Why would you run it in a terminal? Is it for quick edits? If so, use "emacsclient -ca= -nw" for short startup times.
vim is incredibly easy
literallly 3 keybindings/commands you need to make 90% of your edits
a/i to go to an "editing mode"
:x to save and quit
arrow keys to move if you're a retard who can't use hjkl like a normal human being
never had to push weird illegal hacking buttons in windows
switching back rn, it's even ==free==
You need to be very proficient with vi for it to be faster than nano.
Movement using arrow keys or the hjkl equivs shouldn't be that frequent if using vim efficiently. fFtT/?bw }} etc. are much faster. If you review your input and see hhhhhhhhhhhhh then you need to improve.
for the workflow. workflow is ideal when running in terminal. it eliminates a lot of clicking around and keeps your hands on the keyboard. alt + [1,2,3,4...] and you shift to a different tab in terminal. very comfy and it keeps work organized.
Real men know the path to every file in their file system by heart
bloat tbh
Emacs is slightly more keyboard-friendly when you run it graphically, because it doesn't have to deal with the insane way terminal input works.
For switching between terminals with the keyboard, look into a tiling wm, or running shells and terminal emulators inside Emacs.
i don't see how that's so, what are you referring to?
Do you know about ctrl+i being an alternative to tab, ctrl+[ being an alternative to escape, and the rest? They're not for convenience's sake, they're because terminals do some very odd bitwise magic that stops them from being able to distinguish between those keys at all. It's impossible for a terminal application to tell if you pressed ESC a, alt+a or ctrl+[ a. They appear the same to the program.
Terminals have a lot of problems like that. They support only a subset of what a windowing system supports.
If you use Emacs with a GUI it understands a lot of keys terminal Emacs doesn't, such as the menu key (which is by default set as an alternative to M-x in GUI Emacs, but which terminal Emacs can't distinguish from F16). One way terminal Emacs bugs me often is that some terminals can't tell the difference between C-/ and backspace, which means that undoing things is more tedious.
If you run it with a GUI you get a lot of capabilities (better key input, images, proportional fonts, better color theming, etc) without missing out on anything.
ahh yes, so i know using emacs in terminal interferes with certain commands (involving alt+ or esc+...)
alt+ and esc+ are effectively synonyms in emacs to my knowledge. i haven't noticed terminal interfering with ctrl+ commands. there are a couple commands using alt+ that get interfered with, i don't remember specifically because they're not the most heavily used.
these are the commands i use most regularly:
c-w (cut)
c-y (paste)
m-w (copy)
c-space (set mark)
c-l (center at current line)
c-k (kill to end of line)
c-g (quit)
c-s (search, repeat to search next)
m-% (search & replace)
c-x u (undo)
c-x c (exit)
c-x k (kill buffer)
c-x s (save)
c-x left-arrow (go to buffer at left)
c-x right-arrow (go to buffer at right)
c-up-arrow (go up a code block)
c-down-arrow (go down a code block)
c-x 1 / 2 / 3 (split window modes)
c-x o (go to next window)
m-x command (execute command)
c-cc (comment highlited)
m-; (comment highlited if not commented / uncomment highlited if commented)
then in terminal:
alt-1/2/3/... (shift terminal tab)
ctrl+alt+t (new terminal window)
ctrl+shft+t (new terminal tab)
ctrl+shft+w (close terminal tab)
ctrl+shft+q (close terminal window)
alt+ctrl+up-arrow (go to workspace above)
alt+ctrl+down-arrow (go to workspace below)
up-arrow / down-arrow (scroll history)
not a comprehensive list of commands, but the ones that i consider the most important.
as for a windowing system i still don't see the benefit to use anything other than terminal emacs. biggest downside is rarely a command won't work / you may need to use an alternative command or other workaround. the tradeoff for some interference with commands vs better workflow is worth it imo.
if there is one thing i want more than any other in emacs it's better support for code completion. i know it's possible to set up, but support varies between languages and it can be tricky to set up correctly. that doesn't change terminal vs window though.
consider using terminal emacs more tbh.
They're synonyms in terminals, and GUI Emacs inherits it because people are used to it.
You haven't given me a reason for using terminal Emacs more. You've only given me reasons for GUI Emacs not offering you anything terminal Emacs doesn't, but you've given me nothing terminal Emacs offers me that GUI Emacs doesn't.
What does terminal Emacs do better than GUI Emacs?
again, the workflow. the workflow with terminal emacs just cannot be beat using window emacs.
How? Your thing with terminal tabs sort of makes sense, but i use a tabbed tiling wm so I can tab any program.
with terminal tabs usually i'll have a tab for music (music123), a tab for emacs, a tab for managing the directory and compiling, possibly a tab for lynx, other tabs as needed. shift between tabs with alt+1/2/3... and you're set.
using tiling manager with emacs can give a comparable workflow but it's redundant with what emacs can already do, while adding another link in your development environment chain that can break. it makes you dependent on your tiling manager. if there are changes to your tiling manager, they can potentially undermine your workflow. if your tiling manager is not available on the system you're working on, then it's going to completely fuck up your workflow.
whereas with emacs, well, emacs is emacs. there's always 50 ways to do the same command because emacs users are autistic don't like change.
bro, i'm not attacking you. if gui emacs works best for you then you do that. but tbh this isn't a question of what terminal emacs can do that gui emacs / tiling manager can't. simplicity has a quality all it's own. if you're going to add complexity to achieve a similar workflow it seems misguided imo.
i need to go eat some chicken tendies. nice talking to you. if you know a simple way to get code completion for c++ in emacs i'd be interested. i've tried company-mode and autocomplete albeit for java and they were pretty shitty tbh.