Re: address@hidden: Font Lock on-the-fly misfontification in C++]

[Stefan Monnier]

People, can we move on to something else?  It's not like someone's going to
change his mind anyway.  The Emacs camp wants to call their editor "Emacs"
and the XEmacs camp wants to call their editor "XEmacs".  That's that.
Now whether you want to respect their wishes is up to you.


        Stefan "who personally prefers to use Emacs on GNU/Linux
                rather than GNU Emacs on Linux"


>>>>> "David" == David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> Aidan Kehoe <address@hidden> writes:
>> Ar an dara lá de mí Lúnasa, scríobh David Kastrup: 
>> 
>> > And we use the term "Emacs" for referring to Emacs.
>> 
>> > When the term "GNU Emacs" is used, it is to draw attention to the
>> > GNU project and the part Emacs plays within it, not to insinuate
>> > that the scope of Emacs is supposed to be restricted to within
>> > GNU.
>> 
>> No-one uses “GNU Emacs” to insinuate that the editor is supposed to
>> be restricted to within the GNU project. What gave you that
>> impression?

> Why else use it for distinguishing between Emacs and XEmacs?  Their
> relation to the GNU project is similar.  Many parts of GNU are not
> copyrighted by the FSF, including software carrying "GNU" in its
> name.

>> > Contrasting "XEmacs" and "GNU Emacs" is therefore misleading.
>> > The proper names of the editors are "Emacs" and "XEmacs".
>> 
>> Then GNU Emacs should call itself just “Emacs” on its startup
>> screen, as XEmacs calls itself “XEmacs” on its startup screen.

> I repeat: when the term "GNU Emacs" is used, it is to draw attention
> to the GNU project and the part Emacs plays within it.

>> > "GNU Emacs" is a distinction, but not one differentiating Emacs
>> > and XEmacs.
>> 
>> I disagree.

> I am afraid that I consider the opinion of the creator of Emacs more
> relevant than yours with regard on whether Emacs should be allowed to
> be named Emacs.  Of course, you are free to call XEmacs whatever you
> like.  But the name "Emacs" is already taken.

>> > [...] I don't think it too onerous to expect that XEmacs
>> > developers call Emacs "Emacs".
>> 
>> Active developers call your branch of the editor GNU Emacs! It is
>> hypocritical at best to object when others do likewise.

> I repeat: When the term "GNU Emacs" is used, it is to draw attention
> to the GNU project and the part Emacs plays within it, not to
> insinuate that the scope of Emacs is supposed to be restricted to
> within GNU.

>> > The stance that "Emacs" is supposed to mean "Emacs and XEmacs"
>> > and only "GNU Emacs" is supposed to carry the meaning "Emacs" is
>> > not really helpful, not even to XEmacs users.
>> 
>> XEmacs still supports (emacs-version); lots of our documentation
>> uses “emacs” to refer to any version of the editor, something the
>> GNU branch rarely does (that is, it rarely admits that the
>> documentation may be applicable to other branches.).

> Don't you find it silly to blame upstream for your failures to update
> the documentation in order to reflect the fork?

>> I personally would prefer to do this less; I changed the title bar
>> to say “XEmacs” rather than “emacs” partly because of that.

> A perfectly reasonable stance.

> I'll give you a historical document which might make it clearer to you
> why
> a) the documentation of XEmacs has not from early on bothered to
> distinguish between Lucid Emacs and Emacs.
> b) RMS is not too enthused about XEmacs documentation and developers
> trying to hijack the name of Emacs to mean anything but Emacs.

> <URL:http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/764864608067f821?as_q=&address@hidden>

> Note that this is all water under the draw bridge now, but
> historically, the creators of Lucid Emacs laid claim to and hijacked
> the name Emacs (without any further qualifications) for their own fork
> of it.

> Their claim to be the legitimate successor of interest to Emacs was
> what has fueled the idea that "Emacs" somehow is supposed be a proper
> name of XEmacs.  These claims were made in order to cause developers
> to move over to Lucid Emacs.

> XEmacs is not Emacs, but a fork of it.  The license of Emacs permits
> forking its code, it does not permit forking its name.

> That is a bit of the background why the usage put forth in the Emacs
> FAQ should be just "Emacs" and "XEmacs".

> -- 
> David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum