
Nano to remain in GNU - Ianvdl
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-08/msg00045.html
======
qwertyuiop924
This is good news: It's also good to actually see RMS actually compromising.

Also, nano is actually a useful tool, despite its reputation as the editor for
those who don't know what they're doing. It's an excellent editor for quick
edits that aren't worth pulling up emacs for. Although I would never reccomend
it for Real Work, that's not really its intent. And it owns its field, having
crushed all competition save vi, which is really in its own class.

Also, nano is frankly a lot more powerful than a lot of people give it credit
for: It's just not programmable, which is a necessity in editors these days.

~~~
krylon
> as the editor for those who don't know what they're doing

To be honest, I _do_ think of nano as exactly that. Let's say "the editor for
newbies", which sounds slightly less condescending.

Being the editor for newbies is not a bad thing. There are, at any given
point, many newbies who just want to make that one change to that one
configuration file without learning a whole programmer's text editor. There
are, by now, probably plenty of people of who use GNU/Linux just to surf the
web and read their email (and run LibreOffice or GIMP), who don't ____ing care
about text editors except for that one time they need to add an entry to
crontab or sudoers or something.

If you have never touched vi before, its user interface at first seems like a
slap in the face (to put it mildly). Having used vim as my editor of choice
for a couple of years at one time, I still remember, vividly, the first time I
tried to use it. It was no fun at all. The same goes for emacs (which I love
dearly).

If you want to do serious programming / system administration, learning one of
the advanced editors is - at the very least - good advice. But these days,
such people are probably in the minority, even on GNU/Linux. And having an
editor the rest of the population can use without requiring a Ph.D. in
emacsology is a Good Thing, IMHO. It's not something one should feel sorry or
condescending about.

~~~
morganvachon
As someone who has used Linux since 1999 (starting with Slackware) and FreeBSD
and OpenBSD since the early 2000s, I'd say I'm no longer a "newbie". Yet, I
use nano daily because it's so simple and accessible. You only need to
remember a few key combos, and for basic edits there is simply no need to
break out vi or emacs or a GUI editor.

A simple, useful tool does not always equate to "newbies only". In fact, I'd
say it's the UNIX way: A simple tool that does one job really well.

Or to put it another way: Why would I break out my 30 piece combination wrench
set when I just need to turn a nut a little tighter with my adjustable wrench
that's right there next to me?

~~~
caseymarquis
When you work with the combo set from 5 to 16 hours a day and immediately know
the size of the nut on sight, you feel exactly the opposite sentiment.

Probably not the average use case though.

~~~
morganvachon
Excellent point, and I'm getting there with all the work I've been doing
restoring my Bronco.

------
amk_
Good to hear. Nano's up-front display of the core key combinations has been a
source of relief for people getting dropped into a terminal editor for ages.
Wish more distributions would set nano as the default $EDITOR instead of vim.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Oh my god yes. nano, moe, and JOE are more lightweight than vim, and have
better ergonomics. I can understand setting $EDITOR to nvi, mg, or similar,
but setting it to vim is ridiculous: Vim is in Emacs's weight class.

~~~
amk_
The worst is when someone who's never used Vi before gets thrown in there
after running, eg, 'git commit'. Can't Google how to quit because they don't
even know the name of the program!

~~~
aristidb
Google actually quickly directs you to the needed information:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9171356/how-do-i-exit-
fro...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9171356/how-do-i-exit-from-the-
text-window-in-git) (first result for "quit git editor" for me)

------
rahiel
Happy to see the conflict settled! Here's what's in the news entry for the GNU
release:

    
    
        With this release we return to GNU.  For just a little while
        we dreamt we were tigers.  But we are back in the herd,
        back to a healthy diet of fresh green free grass.

------
hannob
Can anyone give some context info? Was there some conflict between GNU and
nano that has now been resolved? What was it about?

~~~
wongarsu
Nano's new maintainer (Benno) didn't like GNU's maintainer agreement and
refused to assign copyright of his contributions to the FSF. So instead he
forked the project to maintain it ouside of GNU.

HN discussion from two months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953044)

~~~
Ianvdl
Some additional background - Why the FSF gets copyright assignments from
contributors: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-
assign.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html)

~~~
wongarsu
tl;dr: for GPL enforcement.

~~~
davidgerard
Which has been _mostly okay_ with widely-distributed ownership, but was a
problem in Christoph Hellwig's case against VMware recently. So there's an
actual problem of enforceability, versus the project-hampering PITA factor of
CLAs at all, _e.g._
[https://lwn.net/Articles/443989/](https://lwn.net/Articles/443989/) It's a
seriously tricky balance issue.

------
4ad
Anybody else use ed(1)?

My main editor is acme, and when I need to do large edit jobs on remote
servers I control I use sam. However, when I have to edit files on servers I
don't control, or when I have to do a quick edit job and I don't have a sam
terminal started yet, I use ed.

Unlike all other editors, ed doesn't erase the screen. I find this extremely
useful. Also, ed is always the same. Vi is not always the same on different
systems. Sometimes it has syntax syntax highlighting by default, forcing me to
make effort to turn it off, sometimes nocompatible is set on or off, etc.

Ed is always the same and has no settings.

Sometimes inside my acme session I run win(1), and sometimes in my win
sessions I ssh to some system and run ed inside acme.

I forced myself to use ed exclusively for a week some years back, and since
then I stuck with it.

~~~
joeyo
My attempts at using ed end up like the session illustrated here:
[https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.txt](https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-
msg.txt)

~~~
SturgeonsLaw
> Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all

It's not often I can type lol and literally mean it, but this is one of those
times.. lol :D

------
AstroJetson
It's a great editor, I use it all the time with new Raspberry Pi people. Since
it's so simple to use we can focus on what we are doing vs learning on how to
drive an editor.

Happy to see RMS was willing to compromise and keep nano in the hurd.

------
niftich
Context:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953044)

See also, if you have time to read:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4p9n7e/as_of_nano_26...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4p9n7e/as_of_nano_260_its_no_longer_a_gnu_project/)

------
mrmondo
To be honest, I didn't realise that nano was being maintained, I sort of
assumed that it was slowly fading out of existence. Honest question: does
anyone here use nano for anything? If so - what are you reasons for using it /
what do you like about it?

~~~
kalleboo
The times I need to edit a text file in a terminal are very rare (config is
managed, code comes from git). I already have a GUI text editor of choice, so
I've never felt any need to memorise vi/emacs (aside from how to save and
exit). nano has the commands right there onscreen if I've forgotten.

~~~
mrmondo
ah yes, interesting, thank you for replying!

------
Ianvdl
The previous HN discussion for some context:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953044)

------
Bino
Fair question: how does it matter?

~~~
Esau
I assume: in that GNU will continue to provide hosting and mailing list
resources.

------
unsignedqword
Why was it at risk of leaving?

------
pcunite
I was always a fan of mcedit.

------
aphextron
edit: not constructive

~~~
effie
I do, and I do not consider it a vim substitution, it's rather a light-weight
console-mode editor that is installed on most systems and easy to use.

~~~
michaelsbradley
There's also GNU moe!

[https://www.gnu.org/software/moe/](https://www.gnu.org/software/moe/)

~~~
tln
JOE clone?!?

I wonder what motivated `moe`.. and when... joe has been a great option for a
terminal editor forever

~~~
isxek
I'm guessing because there was a period of time where joe's maintainer worked
on something else besides joe, and it looked like the project got abandoned
already.

