1 -*- text -*- 2For an order form for all Emacs and FSF distributions deliverable from 3the USA, see http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html. 4 5 GNU Emacs availability information, October 2000 6 7Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 8 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 9 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 10See the end of the file for license conditions. 11 12 13GNU Emacs is legally owned by the Free Software Foundation, but we 14regard the foundation more as its custodian on behalf of the public. 15 16In the GNU project, when we speak of "free software", this refers to 17liberty, not price. Specifically, it refers to the users' freedom to 18study, copy, change and improve the software. Sometimes users pay 19money for copies of GNU software, and sometimes they get copies at no 20charge. But regardless of how they got the software, or whether it 21was modified by anyone else along the way, they have the freedom to 22copy and change it--those freedoms are what "free software" means. 23 24The precise conditions for copying and modification are stated in the 25document "GNU General Public License," a copy of which is required to 26be distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs. It is usually in a file 27named `COPYING' in the same directory as this file. These conditions 28are designed to make sure that everyone who has a copy of GNU Emacs 29(including modified versions) has the freedom to redistribute and 30change it. 31 32If you do not know anyone to get a copy of GNU Emacs from, you can 33order a cd-rom from the Free Software Foundation. We distribute 34several Emacs versions. We also distribute nicely typeset copies of 35the Emacs user manual, Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, the Emacs 36reference card, etc. See http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html. 37 38If you have Internet access, you can copy the latest Emacs 39distribution from hosts, such as ftp.gnu.org. There are several ways 40to do this; see http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html for more 41information. 42 43Emacs has been run on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and on many 44Unix systems, on a variety of types of cpu, as well as on MSDOS, 45Windows and MacOS. It also formerly worked on VMS and on Apollo 46computers, though with some deficiencies that reflect problems in 47these operating systems. See the file `MACHINES' in this directory 48(see above) for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested 49on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings. 50 51Note that there is significant variation between Unix systems 52supposedly running the same version of Unix; it is possible that what 53works in GNU Emacs for me does not work on your system due to such an 54incompatibility. Since I must avoid reading Unix source code, I 55cannot even guess what such problems may exist. 56 57GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public 58License for full details, in the file `COPYING' in this directory (see 59above)), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any 60kind of support or assistance to users. The foundation keeps a list 61of people who are willing to offer support and assistance for hire. 62See http://www.gnu.org/help/gethelp.html. 63 64However, we plan to continue to improve GNU Emacs and keep it 65reliable, so please send me any complaints and suggestions you have. 66I will probably fix anything that I consider a malfunction. I may 67make improvements that are suggested, but I may choose not to. 68 69If you are on the Internet, report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. You 70can use the Emacs command M-x report-bug RET to mail a bug report. 71Please read the Bugs section of the Emacs manual before reporting 72bugs. 73 74General questions about the GNU Project can be asked of gnu@gnu.org. 75 76If you are a computer manufacturer, I encourage you to ship a copy of 77GNU Emacs with every computer you deliver. The same copying 78permission terms apply to computer manufacturers as to everyone else. 79You should consider making a donation to help support the GNU project; 80if you estimate what it would cost to distribute some commercial 81product and divide it by five, that is a good amount. 82 83If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a 84donation: send me or the Foundation what you feel Emacs has been worth 85to you. If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it 86as free software, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial 87practices typical of software developers, reward me. If you would 88like the Foundation to develop more free software, contribute. 89 90Your donations will help to support the development of additional GNU 91software. GNU/Linux systems (variants of GNU, based on the kernel 92Linux) have millions of users, but there is still much to be done. 93For more information on GNU, see the file `GNU' in this directory (see 94above). 95 96 Richard M Stallman 97 Chief GNUisance, 98 President of the Free Software Foundation 99 100This file is part of GNU Emacs. 101 102GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 103it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by 104the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) 105any later version. 106 107GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 108but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 109MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the 110GNU General Public License for more details. 111 112You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 113along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the 114Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, 115Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA. 116