GNU Emacs availability information, 11 Feb 1987 Copyright (C) 1986 Richard M. Stallman Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved. GNU Emacs is legally owned by the Free Software Foundation, but we regard the foundation actually as its custodian on behalf of the public, since all software ought to be the common property of mankind. The foundation permits everyone to have and run copies of GNU Emacs, at no charge, and to redistribute copies under certain conditions which are designed to make sure that that all modified versions of GNU Emacs remain as free as the versions we distribute. These conditions are stated in the document "GNU Emacs General Public License", a copy of which is required to be distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs. It is usually in a file named COPYING in the same directory as this file. If you do not know anyone to get a copy of GNU Emacs from, you can order a tape from the Free Software Foundation. We distribute Emacs version 17 on 1600bpi industry standard mag tape in tar format. We also distribute nicely typeset copies of the Emacs manual. See the order form at the end of this file. The file you are reading comes with Emacs version 18, which is currently still in beta test. When version 18 is officially released (by March, we hope), we will also start shipping it on 1/4" cartridge tapes in tar format and on 1600bpi magtape in VMS interchange format. If you have Internet access, you can copy the latest Emacs distribution from host prep.ai.mit.arpa. There are several ways to do this; see the file `FTP' in the same directory as this file for more information. Even better, get the latest version of the file from `/u2/emacs/etc/FTP' on prep.ai.mit.edu for the most current arrangements. It may also be possible to copy Emacs through UUCP; the file `FTP' contains information on that too. Emacs has been run on both Berkeley Unix and System V Unix, on a variety of types of cpu. It also works on VMS and on Apollo computers, though with some deficiencies that reflect problems in these operating systems. See the file MACHINES in this directory for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings. Note that there is significant variation between Unix systems supposedly running the same version of Unix; it is possible that what works in GNU Emacs for me does not work on your system due to such an incompatibility. Since I must avoid reading Unix source code, I cannot even guess what such problems may exist. GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public License for full details), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any kind of support or assistance to users. The foundation keeps a list of people who are willing to offer support and assistance for hire. We will list anyone who agrees never to ask customers to keep secret anything they are told or given as part of the support. However, I plan to continue to improve GNU Emacs and keep it reliable, so please send me any complaints and suggestions you have. I will probably fix anything that is clearly (to me) a malfunction. I may make an improvement if I consider it worth the effort, but you should not be surprised if I don't think I can spare time for it. I hope to keep Emacs stable now, and avoid putting much time into it, so I can work on other parts of the GNU system. If you are on the Internet, report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu; on Usenet, use the address ...!ucbvax!bug-gnu-emacs%prep.ai.mit.edu. Otherwise, phone the foundation at (617) 876-3296, or write to the address listed below. If you are a computer manufacturer, I encourage you to ship a copy of GNU Emacs with every computer you deliver. The same copying permission terms apply to computer manufacturers as to everyone else. You should consider making a donation to help support the GNU project; if you estimate what it would cost to distribute some commercial product and divide it by five, that is a good amount. If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a donation: send me or the Foundation what you feel Emacs has been worth to you. If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it as freeware, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial practices typical of software developers, reward me for doing so! Your donations will help to support the development of more useful software to be distributed on the same basis as GNU Emacs. Eventually we will have a complete imitation of the Unix operating system, called GNU (Gnu's Not Unix), which will run Unix user programs. For more information on GNU, see the file GNU in this directory. Richard M Stallman Chief GNUisance, President of the Free Software Foundation Free Software Foundation Order Form February 11, 1987 All software and publications are distributed with permission to copy and redistribute. Quantity Price Item ________ $150 GNU Emacs source code, on a 1600bpi industry standard mag tape in tar format. The tape also contains GDB (the GNU source-level C debugger), MIT Scheme (a dialect of Lisp), hack (a rogue-like game) and bison (a compatible replacement for yacc). Currently our tapes are of Emacs version 17. We will switch to Emacs version 18 when it is considered stable. Version 18 tapes will contain a copy of the X window system (a window system for bitmap displays written at MIT), and GNU Chess (a chess playing program with an interface to X), as well as the programs listed above. _______ Please hold my tape order until version 18 is ready. ________ $15 GNU Emacs manual (~300 pages). These manuals are phototypeset and offset printed, with illustrated covers, GBC plastic ring binding that stays open flat, and a tear-out reference card. Thus, a 1600 bpi tape and one Emacs manual come to $165. ________ $10 GDB Manual (~55 pages, side stapled.) ________ $10 Texinfo Manual (~30 pages, side stapled. Texinfo is GNU's structured documentation system, included with GNU Emacs. This manual describes how to write Texinfo documents). ________ $60 Box of six GNU Emacs manuals. ________ $1 GNU Emacs reference card. Or: ________ $5 Ten GNU Emacs reference cards. Shipping outside North America is normally by surface mail. For air mail delivery, please add $15 per tape or manual, $1 for an individual reference card, or 50 cents per card in quantity ten or more. Prices are subject to change without notice. Massachusetts residents please add 5% sales tax to all prices. ________ Optional tax deductable donation ________ Total paid Orders are filled upon receipt of check or money order. We do not have the staff to handle the billing of unpaid orders. Please help keep our lives simple by including your payment with your order. Make checks payable to Free Software Foundation. Mail orders to: Free Software Foundation, Inc. 1000 Mass Ave Cambridge, MA 02138 All software from the Free Software Foundation is provided on an "as is" basis, with no warranty of any kind.