code.delx.au - gnu-emacs/blob - etc/DISTRIB

   1                                                 -*- text -*-
   2 For an order form for all Emacs and FSF distributions deliverable from
   3 the USA, see http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.
   4 \f
   5            GNU Emacs availability information, October 2000
   6
   7 Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998,
   8    2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   9
  10         Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute
  11         verbatim copies of this document provided that the
  12         copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved.
  13
  14 GNU Emacs is legally owned by the Free Software Foundation, but we
  15 regard the foundation more as its custodian on behalf of the public.
  16
  17 In the GNU project, when we speak of "free software", this refers to
  18 liberty, not price.  Specifically, it refers to the users' freedom to
  19 study, copy, change and improve the software.  Sometimes users pay
  20 money for copies of GNU software, and sometimes they get copies at no
  21 charge.  But regardless of how they got the software, or whether it
  22 was modified by anyone else along the way, they have the freedom to
  23 copy and change it--those freedoms are what "free software" means.
  24
  25 The precise conditions for copying and modification are stated in the
  26 document "GNU General Public License," a copy of which is required to
  27 be distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs.  It is usually in a file
  28 named `COPYING' in the same directory as this file.  These conditions
  29 are designed to make sure that everyone who has a copy of GNU Emacs
  30 (including modified versions) has the freedom to redistribute and
  31 change it.
  32
  33 If you do not know anyone to get a copy of GNU Emacs from, you can
  34 order a cd-rom from the Free Software Foundation.  We distribute
  35 several Emacs versions.  We also distribute nicely typeset copies of
  36 the Emacs user manual, Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, the Emacs
  37 reference card, etc.  See http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.
  38
  39 If you have Internet access, you can copy the latest Emacs
  40 distribution from hosts, such as ftp.gnu.org.  There are several ways
  41 to do this; see http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html for more
  42 information.
  43
  44 Emacs has been run on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and on many
  45 Unix systems, on a variety of types of cpu, as well as on MSDOS,
  46 Windows and MacOS.  It also formerly worked on VMS and on Apollo
  47 computers, though with some deficiencies that reflect problems in
  48 these operating systems.  See the file `MACHINES' in this directory
  49 (see above) for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested
  50 on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings.
  51
  52 Note that there is significant variation between Unix systems
  53 supposedly running the same version of Unix; it is possible that what
  54 works in GNU Emacs for me does not work on your system due to such an
  55 incompatibility.  Since I must avoid reading Unix source code, I
  56 cannot even guess what such problems may exist.
  57
  58 GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public
  59 License for full details, in the file `COPYING' in this directory (see
  60 above)), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any
  61 kind of support or assistance to users.  The foundation keeps a list
  62 of people who are willing to offer support and assistance for hire.
  63 See http://www.gnu.org/help/gethelp.html.
  64
  65 However, we plan to continue to improve GNU Emacs and keep it
  66 reliable, so please send me any complaints and suggestions you have.
  67 I will probably fix anything that I consider a malfunction.  I may
  68 make improvements that are suggested, but I may choose not to.
  69
  70 If you are on the Internet, report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.  You
  71 can use the Emacs command M-x report-bug RET to mail a bug report.
  72 Please read the Bugs section of the Emacs manual before reporting
  73 bugs.
  74
  75 General questions about the GNU Project can be asked of gnu@gnu.org.
  76
  77 If you are a computer manufacturer, I encourage you to ship a copy of
  78 GNU Emacs with every computer you deliver.  The same copying
  79 permission terms apply to computer manufacturers as to everyone else.
  80 You should consider making a donation to help support the GNU project;
  81 if you estimate what it would cost to distribute some commercial
  82 product and divide it by five, that is a good amount.
  83
  84 If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
  85 donation: send me or the Foundation what you feel Emacs has been worth
  86 to you.  If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it
  87 as free software, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial
  88 practices typical of software developers, reward me.  If you would
  89 like the Foundation to develop more free software, contribute.
  90
  91 Your donations will help to support the development of additional GNU
  92 software.  GNU/Linux systems (variants of GNU, based on the kernel
  93 Linux) have millions of users, but there is still much to be done.
  94 For more information on GNU, see the file `GNU' in this directory (see
  95 above).
  96
  97                         Richard M Stallman
  98                         Chief GNUisance,
  99                         President of the Free Software Foundation