EmacsConf 2026 community panel - my comments
This is a recollection of my comments from the EmacsConf 2026 community panel recording session this past weekend, where the panellists took turns answering the proposed questions, one minute per question per panellist.
In addition to the live Q&A session planned for Saturday 12 December 2026 during EmacsConf 2026, all Emacs users and community members are invited to share their thoughts on the panel questions or other questions before or after the conference.
https://emacsconf.org/2026/talks/community/
1. What made you start using Emacs, and what kept you using it?
I started using Emacs during my bachelor's studies. I actually learned about Vim first and was a Vim user, but I'd always found the configuration language (VimScript) a little bit clunky. Not long after, I discovered Emacs, and really loved reading and writing Emacs Lisp, so I stuck around.
In addition to reading and writing Elisp being fun and enjoyable for me, I love that Emacs has been a practical embodiment of software freedom, and I'm really fond of its surrounding culture of sharing freely. There's a lot to love and appreciate about Emacs, but as a practical personal example, I've been grateful for its excellent support for bidirectional text editing. It has empowered me to read and write in Persian, my mother tongue, with ease. (Persian has a right-to-left alphabet, like Arabic and Hebrew.)
2. What took you from using Emacs to actively contributing to the community - participating in forums, writing Elisp, organizing meetups, answering questions?
As I continued experimenting and writing bits and pieces of Elisp to scratch my own itches, I felt compelled to share them freely as a way of giving back to the community that gave me so much.
For me, the community and the people that make it up are the main deal. Emacs wouldn't be where it is and what it is today without its people, so besides programming contributions, I've tried to contribute in that area as well, for instance by reviving EmacsConf with Sacha Chua back in 2019.
3. How does Emacs show up for you in real life - colleagues, meetups, friends? How did those connections form?
I don't physically have people near me who use Emacs, but I've connected with many folks in our online communities, often starting with an email or IRC message. Some of those relationships started as acquaintanceship and were developed into true friendship over time, and I'm grateful to have had those friends with me.
4. If you know other software communities, what's one thing Emacs could learn from them?
I would encourage Emacs, our community, to focus on the people. We're living in particularly difficult times, with various kinds of hardships and uncertainty in our lives. Let's strive to treat each other with kindness, empathy, and mindfulness as we continue working together.
There are great examples of other free software communities whose members have banded together and are strengthening each other and their community, as well as cautionary ones where community members have been tiring and driving out their fellow members. We could learn valuable lessons from both in how to take care of our people and ourselves.
5. What's one concrete thing you wish existed in the Emacs community a year from now?
I echoed the sentiments of my fellow panellists Prot and Til about doing more of the same in terms of continuing to uphold the standards of excellence and perseverance. Also, drawing inspiration from what bashbunni said, to lower the barriers of entry for people, for example through organizing different kinds of events, and experimenting with ways to make people's lengthy, elaborate Emacs configurations more tangible and accessible to others, to share various workflows and demonstrate what's possible with Emacs.
I look forward to your thoughts on these and other community-related questions.
Take care, and so long for now.