Re: Another iteration on the Emacs website

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Random832 <random832@fastmail.com>
>> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2015 20:14:18 -0500
>> 
>> Xue Fuqiao <xfq.free@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> > On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 8:15 AM, Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> [2] The only other projects of similar age which come to
>> >>     (my) mind are the X Window System and the TeX familiy of
>> >>     programs.
>> >
>> > Maybe you forgot some GNU projects, like Hurd, glibc, Bash, GCC, GDB,
>> > Octave, and Texinfo.
>> 
>> Depends on what you mean by similar age.
>> 
>> 1978 TeX
>> 1983 AMS-TeX
>> 1984 X
>> 1984 Emacs
>> 1985 LaTeX
>> 1986 GDB
>> 1987 GCC
>> 1988 glibc
>> 1989 Bash
>> 1990 Hurd
>> 1992 Octave ("conceived" 1988)
>
> Emacs started the GNU project,

"Emacs" preceded the GNU project.  The Gosling Emacs rat-out prompted
Richard to write the GPL and sketch out the definition and needs for
GNU.  The Emacs code base was rewritten to be free of third-party
copyrights and then restarted as GNU Emacs.

> so it's a small wonder it predates any other GNU package.  Also, first
> versions of GCC and GDB were written by Richard, which is another
> reason why they came after Emacs.

The main reason is that they were written as components for the GNU
project whereas Emacs was written as a tool for editing.  The original
Emacs was free software but not copylefted, and that backfired.  Once
copyleft was created and there was a formal definition of free software,
there was an incentive for creating a whole cohesive system relying on
copyleft protection for seminal parts and assembled with outside
components also providing the four software freedoms even if not the
copyleft's mechanism protecting them.

-- 
David Kastrup