Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual

[Richard Stallman]

    Richard, please reconsider.  You have a reputation of antipathy towards
    XEmacs.  If you're at all interested in mending fences a little, this would
    be a very easy step -- simply declare that we are allowed to use the code
    under our license (which was your license up through 2000 or so).  Otherwise
    you give the impression of actively hindering the XEmacs project.

I did not choose this license with a view to its effects on you; it is
the general FSF policy for manuals.  However, the fact that it is
inconvenient for XEmacs does not strike me as a disadvantage.  After
all, you have been uncooperative towards us for 10 years, and you
don't see that as a disadvantage.  We don't owe you anything, not even
small favors.

Despite my well-known and justified antipathy towards XEmacs, I
offered to consider changing licenses on parts.  However, the response
was an ungreatful threat, so I now withdraw that offer.  If I did even
the slightest thing for XEmacs now, I might give the impression of
being a pushover.


I ask all Emacs developers not to respond any further to whatever
they may say here about this.