| 1 | -*- text -*- |
| 2 | GNU Emacs availability information |
| 3 | |
| 4 | Copyright (C) 1986-1993, 1995, 1998, 2000-2014 Free Software Foundation, |
| 5 | Inc. |
| 6 | See the end of the file for license conditions. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | |
| 9 | GNU Emacs is legally owned by the Free Software Foundation, but we |
| 10 | regard the foundation more as its custodian on behalf of the public. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | In the GNU project, when we speak of "free software", this refers to |
| 13 | liberty, not price. Specifically, it refers to the users' freedom to |
| 14 | study, copy, change and improve the software. Sometimes users pay |
| 15 | money for copies of GNU software, and sometimes they get copies at no |
| 16 | charge. But regardless of how they got the software, or whether it |
| 17 | was modified by anyone else along the way, they have the freedom to |
| 18 | copy and change it--those freedoms are what "free software" means. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | The precise conditions for copying and modification are stated in the |
| 21 | document "GNU General Public License," a copy of which is required to |
| 22 | be distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs. It is usually in a file |
| 23 | named `COPYING' in the same directory as this file. These conditions |
| 24 | are designed to make sure that everyone who has a copy of GNU Emacs |
| 25 | (including modified versions) has the freedom to redistribute and |
| 26 | change it. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | For information on how to get GNU software, see |
| 29 | http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html. Printed copies of GNU |
| 30 | manuals, including the Emacs manual, are available from the FSF's |
| 31 | online store at http://shop.fsf.org. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | Emacs has been run on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and on many |
| 34 | Unix systems, on a variety of types of cpu, as well as on MSDOS, |
| 35 | Windows and MacOS. See the file `etc/MACHINES' in the Emacs |
| 36 | distribution for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested |
| 37 | on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public |
| 40 | License for full details, in the file `COPYING' in this directory (see |
| 41 | above)), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any |
| 42 | kind of support or assistance to users. The foundation keeps a list |
| 43 | of people who are willing to offer support and assistance for hire. |
| 44 | See http://www.gnu.org/help/gethelp.html. |
| 45 | |
| 46 | However, we plan to continue to improve GNU Emacs and keep it |
| 47 | reliable, so please send us any complaints and suggestions you have. |
| 48 | We will probably fix anything that we consider a malfunction. We may |
| 49 | make improvements that are suggested, but we may choose not to. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | If you are on the Internet, report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. |
| 52 | You can use the Emacs command M-x report-bug RET to mail a bug report. |
| 53 | Please read the Bugs section of the Emacs manual before reporting bugs. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | General questions about the GNU Project can be asked of gnu@gnu.org. |
| 56 | |
| 57 | If you are a computer manufacturer, I encourage you to ship a copy of |
| 58 | GNU Emacs with every computer you deliver. The same copying |
| 59 | permission terms apply to computer manufacturers as to everyone else. |
| 60 | You should consider making a donation to help support the GNU project; |
| 61 | if you estimate what it would cost to distribute some commercial |
| 62 | product and divide it by five, that is a good amount. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a donation: |
| 65 | send me (please email me about how) or the Foundation |
| 66 | (https://my.fsf.org/donate) what you feel Emacs has been worth to you. |
| 67 | If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it as free |
| 68 | software, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial |
| 69 | practices of proprietary software, you can reward me. If you would |
| 70 | like the Foundation to do more to forward the cause of free software, |
| 71 | you can contribute. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | Your donations will help to support the development of additional GNU |
| 74 | software. GNU/Linux systems (variants of GNU, based on the kernel |
| 75 | Linux) have millions of users, but there is still much to be done. |
| 76 | For more information on GNU, see the file `GNU' in this directory (see |
| 77 | above). |
| 78 | |
| 79 | Richard M Stallman |
| 80 | Chief GNUisance, |
| 81 | President of the Free Software Foundation |
| 82 | \f |
| 83 | This file is part of GNU Emacs. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify |
| 86 | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by |
| 87 | the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or |
| 88 | (at your option) any later version. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, |
| 91 | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
| 92 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the |
| 93 | GNU General Public License for more details. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License |
| 96 | along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. |