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Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website
From: |
David Kastrup |
Subject: |
Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website |
Date: |
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 10:55:47 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) |
Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
>> From: Random832 <address@hidden>
>> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2015 20:14:18 -0500
>>
>> Xue Fuqiao <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>> > On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 8:15 AM, Gregor Zattler <address@hidden> wrote:
>> >
>> >> [2] The only other projects of similar age which come to
>> >> (my) mind are the X Window System and the TeX familiy of
>> >> programs.
>> >
>> > Maybe you forgot some GNU projects, like Hurd, glibc, Bash, GCC, GDB,
>> > Octave, and Texinfo.
>>
>> Depends on what you mean by similar age.
>>
>> 1978 TeX
>> 1983 AMS-TeX
>> 1984 X
>> 1984 Emacs
>> 1985 LaTeX
>> 1986 GDB
>> 1987 GCC
>> 1988 glibc
>> 1989 Bash
>> 1990 Hurd
>> 1992 Octave ("conceived" 1988)
>
> Emacs started the GNU project,
"Emacs" preceded the GNU project. The Gosling Emacs rat-out prompted
Richard to write the GPL and sketch out the definition and needs for
GNU. The Emacs code base was rewritten to be free of third-party
copyrights and then restarted as GNU Emacs.
> so it's a small wonder it predates any other GNU package. Also, first
> versions of GCC and GDB were written by Richard, which is another
> reason why they came after Emacs.
The main reason is that they were written as components for the GNU
project whereas Emacs was written as a tool for editing. The original
Emacs was free software but not copylefted, and that backfired. Once
copyleft was created and there was a formal definition of free software,
there was an incentive for creating a whole cohesive system relying on
copyleft protection for seminal parts and assembled with outside
components also providing the four software freedoms even if not the
copyleft's mechanism protecting them.
--
David Kastrup
- Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website, (continued)
Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website, Richard Stallman, 2015/12/12
Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website, Xue Fuqiao, 2015/12/11
Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website, John Wiegley, 2015/12/12
Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website, Christian Dietrich, 2015/12/14
Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website, Xavier Maillard, 2015/12/14