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,
   8   1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
   9   Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  10 See the end of the file for license conditions.
  11
  12
  13 GNU Emacs is legally owned by the Free Software Foundation, but we
  14 regard the foundation more as its custodian on behalf of the public.
  15
  16 In the GNU project, when we speak of "free software", this refers to
  17 liberty, not price.  Specifically, it refers to the users' freedom to
  18 study, copy, change and improve the software.  Sometimes users pay
  19 money for copies of GNU software, and sometimes they get copies at no
  20 charge.  But regardless of how they got the software, or whether it
  21 was modified by anyone else along the way, they have the freedom to
  22 copy and change it--those freedoms are what "free software" means.
  23
  24 The precise conditions for copying and modification are stated in the
  25 document "GNU General Public License," a copy of which is required to
  26 be distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs.  It is usually in a file
  27 named `COPYING' in the same directory as this file.  These conditions
  28 are designed to make sure that everyone who has a copy of GNU Emacs
  29 (including modified versions) has the freedom to redistribute and
  30 change it.
  31
  32 If you do not know anyone to get a copy of GNU Emacs from, you can
  33 order a cd-rom from the Free Software Foundation.  We distribute
  34 several Emacs versions.  We also distribute nicely typeset copies of
  35 the Emacs user manual, Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, the Emacs
  36 reference card, etc.  See http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.
  37
  38 If you have Internet access, you can copy the latest Emacs
  39 distribution from hosts, such as ftp.gnu.org.  There are several ways
  40 to do this; see http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html for more
  41 information.
  42
  43 Emacs has been run on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and on many
  44 Unix systems, on a variety of types of cpu, as well as on MSDOS,
  45 Windows and MacOS.  It also formerly worked on VMS and on Apollo
  46 computers, though with some deficiencies that reflect problems in
  47 these operating systems.  See the file `MACHINES' in this directory
  48 (see above) for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested
  49 on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings.
  50
  51 Note that there is significant variation between Unix systems
  52 supposedly running the same version of Unix; it is possible that what
  53 works in GNU Emacs for me does not work on your system due to such an
  54 incompatibility.  Since I must avoid reading Unix source code, I
  55 cannot even guess what such problems may exist.
  56
  57 GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public
  58 License for full details, in the file `COPYING' in this directory (see
  59 above)), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any
  60 kind of support or assistance to users.  The foundation keeps a list
  61 of people who are willing to offer support and assistance for hire.
  62 See http://www.gnu.org/help/gethelp.html.
  63
  64 However, we plan to continue to improve GNU Emacs and keep it
  65 reliable, so please send me any complaints and suggestions you have.
  66 I will probably fix anything that I consider a malfunction.  I may
  67 make improvements that are suggested, but I may choose not to.
  68
  69 If you are on the Internet, report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.  You
  70 can use the Emacs command M-x report-bug RET to mail a bug report.
  71 Please read the Bugs section of the Emacs manual before reporting
  72 bugs.
  73
  74 General questions about the GNU Project can be asked of gnu@gnu.org.
  75
  76 If you are a computer manufacturer, I encourage you to ship a copy of
  77 GNU Emacs with every computer you deliver.  The same copying
  78 permission terms apply to computer manufacturers as to everyone else.
  79 You should consider making a donation to help support the GNU project;
  80 if you estimate what it would cost to distribute some commercial
  81 product and divide it by five, that is a good amount.
  82
  83 If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
  84 donation: send me or the Foundation what you feel Emacs has been worth
  85 to you.  If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it
  86 as free software, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial
  87 practices typical of software developers, reward me.  If you would
  88 like the Foundation to develop more free software, contribute.
  89
  90 Your donations will help to support the development of additional GNU
  91 software.  GNU/Linux systems (variants of GNU, based on the kernel
  92 Linux) have millions of users, but there is still much to be done.
  93 For more information on GNU, see the file `GNU' in this directory (see
  94 above).
  95
  96                         Richard M Stallman
  97                         Chief GNUisance,
  98                         President of the Free Software Foundation
  99 \f
 100 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 101
 102 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 103 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 104 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 105 (at your option) any later version.
 106
 107 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 108 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 109 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 110 GNU General Public License for more details.
 111
 112 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 113 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.