From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Richard M. Stallman" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is there any way to have a string literal that is read "raw" Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:20:18 -0400 Message-ID: References: <42CE8ADB.2000007@student.lu.se> <42CEFD45.2050107@student.lu.se> <42D00BF0.4050500@student.lu.se> <42D1930C.8040208@student.lu.se> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1121139000 18227 80.91.229.2 (12 Jul 2005 03:30:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 03:30:00 +0000 (UTC) Cc: lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 12 05:29:52 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DsBSt-0002ea-AE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 12 Jul 2005 05:29:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DsBUU-0005Xl-3g for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:31:26 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DsBTa-0005EI-9d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:30:31 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DsBTW-0005CZ-P9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:30:27 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DsBTW-0005Ak-LG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:30:26 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DsBU6-0006m7-N3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:31:02 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1DsBJi-0003Mi-By; Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:20:18 -0400 Original-To: Eli Zaretskii In-reply-to: (message from Eli Zaretskii on Mon, 11 Jul 2005 22:49:24 +0300) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:40809 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:40809 > If a program would run only on Windows, we recommend that people not > write that program at all. If we were to distribute such a program, > that would put us in a hypocritical position. So we don't distribute > such programs Actually, we (i.e. the FSF and the GNU Project) do. When I worked on the GNU Software for MS-Windows and MS-DOS CDROM, you agreed to put 3 programs there that were written specifically for the users of Windows: the installer of the software, a clone of the Unix `man' command, and DJTAR, a utility that unpacks .tar.gz archives. I stand corrected on this detail, but the facts that you've cited agree with the general principle that I stated. I think the principle was: if the Windows-specific program helps people use GNU software, it is okay to write and distribute it. For the same reason, there are several Windows-specific programs that we maintain and distribute with Emacs (addpm, cmdproxy, ddeclient, etc.). These programs are best understood as part of porting Emacs to Windows, making the standard Emacs functionality work there too. Porting Emacs is something we support, whether the code is inside Emacs or in a separate auxiliary program. The crucial distinction is between porting Emacs so that its standard functionality works on Windows, and extending Emacs with new functionality that only works on Windows. The latter is what we don't do. Extensions to Emacs must be done in a way that runs on the GNU system.