Re: [simon.marshall@misys.com: Font Lock on-the-fly misfontification in C++]

[Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net>]

 Ar an dara lá de mí Lúnasa, scríobh David Kastrup: 

 > >  > When the term "GNU Emacs" is used, it is to draw attention to the
 > >  > GNU project and the part Emacs plays within it, not to insinuate
 > >  > that the scope of Emacs is supposed to be restricted to within GNU.
 > >
 > > No-one uses “GNU Emacs” to insinuate that the editor is supposed to
 > > be restricted to within the GNU project. What gave you that
 > > impression?
 > 
 > Why else use it for distinguishing between Emacs and XEmacs?  

Because it has currency as a term for a specific editor and code base, and
it’s clear. I refer you to http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html: RMS uses
“Emacs” without qualification thirteen times to refer to something other
than GNU Emacs, and uses “GNU Emacs” when he wants to underline that he’s
talking about that editor, not just when he’s underlining that it’s part of
the GNU project.

“Emacs” on its own is ambiguous; that this ambiguity is often resolved by
context on emacs-devel@gnu.org does not contradict that. 

 > Their relation to the GNU project is similar. Many parts of GNU are not
 > copyrighted by the FSF, including software carrying "GNU" in its name.

XEmacs doesn’t carry GNU in its name, no more than GNU Emacs carries
“Electrotechnical Laboratory Japan” in its name. 

 > >  > Contrasting "XEmacs" and "GNU Emacs" is therefore misleading.
 > >  > The proper names of the editors are "Emacs" and "XEmacs".
 > >
 > > Then GNU Emacs should call itself just “Emacs” on its startup
 > > screen, as XEmacs calls itself “XEmacs” on its startup screen.
 > 
 > I repeat: when the term "GNU Emacs" is used, it is to draw attention
 > to the GNU project and the part Emacs plays within it.

I refer you to the link above, where “GNU Emacs” is used to distinguish that
version written subsequent to Gosling Emacs in C and maintained by RMS from
other versions of the editor.

 > >  > "GNU Emacs" is a distinction, but not one differentiating Emacs
 > >  > and XEmacs.
 > >
 > > I disagree.
 > 
 > I am afraid that I consider the opinion of the creator of Emacs more
 > relevant than yours with regard on whether Emacs should be allowed to
 > be named Emacs.

I said nothing whatsoever about allowing anyone to name anything. 
 
 > Of course, you are free to call XEmacs whatever you like. But the name
 > "Emacs" is already taken.

Happily, we call it XEmacs. 

 > > [...] XEmacs still supports (emacs-version); lots of our documentation
 > > uses “emacs” to refer to any version of the editor, something the GNU
 > > branch rarely does (that is, it rarely admits that the documentation
 > > may be applicable to other branches.).
 > 
 > Don't you find it silly to blame upstream for your failures to update
 > the documentation in order to reflect the fork?

I find it helpful to indicate that functionality, while available in XEmacs,
is not limited to it. I’m not blaming anyone for anything. 

 > Note that this is all water under the draw bridge now, but
 > historically, the creators of Lucid Emacs laid claim to and hijacked
 > the name Emacs (without any further qualifications) for their own fork
 > of it.

As Stallman hijacked the name of TECO Emacs (which editor he did not come up
with on his own, remember) before them. Lucid is long dead, Ben Wing is
working intermittently at best, the editor has been called XEmacs for a
decade, the documentation no longer tries to confuse the issue; I have
relatively little sympathy for paranoia on this. 

-- 
Santa Maradona, priez pour moi!