Emacs on GNUstep (prerelease)

Emacs on GNUstep (prerelease)

[Adrian Robert]

Hello emacs developers,

This is mainly an informational announcement right now, but some on 
this list may be interested to know of this work: I've released what 
I'm calling (for want of a better name) Emacs for *Step 8.0-pre1 
(GNUstep):

http://kamares.ucsd.edu/~arobert/GNUstep/emacs.html

This is a modification of "Emacs on Aqua" 
(http://emacs-on-aqua.sf.net), which traces its lineage back to an 
original port of GNU Emacs to NeXTstep by Carl Edman, which was 
successively modified for OpenStep, Rhapsody, and OS X, and updated 
most recently to emacs version 20.7.  Hence the 8.0 version number.

GNUstep (http://gnustep.org) is a free open source implementation of 
the OpenStep API and environment specification published by NeXT, that 
brings a number of modern enhancements such as anti-aliased text 
rendering, XML APIs, and (in development) themeable look and feel.  It 
also tries to implement features added by Apple (the acquirer of NeXT) 
as part of MacOS X where possible.

The Emacs release is "pre1" because there are still a number of 
outstanding issues both on GNUstep and OS X (see web page / README) 
for details.  Hopefully, I and the GNUstep community will be able to 
resolve these within a couple of months and
release 8.0 final for GNUstep and OS X.

If this happens, we will eventually be interested in trying to bring 
this port up to Emacs 21.  I have heard that there were a lot of 
internal changes to the Emacs graphical terminal code from 20 to 21, 
and therefore it may end up being easier to start from the current 
Carbon-based Emacs for OS X to do this.  My own thought was to use 
this for a reference, but to build on the *Step code,
which seems to be well-designed and thoroughly done (though in need of 
some cleanup after years of quick ports from NeXTstep to OpenStep to 
Rhapsody and so forth).  There may be copyright issues with the *Step 
code, though my preliminary investigations suggest things may be OK / 
resolvable here.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or reactions are welcome.

thanks,
Adrian Robert

Re: Emacs on GNUstep (prerelease)

[Richard Stallman]

    This is a modification of "Emacs on Aqua" 
    (http://emacs-on-aqua.sf.net), which traces its lineage back to an 
    original port of GNU Emacs to NeXTstep by Carl Edman, which was 
    successively modified for OpenStep, Rhapsody, and OS X, and updated 
    most recently to emacs version 20.7.  Hence the 8.0 version number.

Can you find all the authors of those changes, so we could get
legal papers from them in order to install this?

    If this happens, we will eventually be interested in trying to bring 
    this port up to Emacs 21.  I have heard that there were a lot of 
    internal changes to the Emacs graphical terminal code from 20 to 21, 
    and therefore it may end up being easier to start from the current 
    Carbon-based Emacs for OS X to do this.

Since we support a greater variety of display platforms and toolkits
now, the newer code might also be easier to do this in.

Re: Emacs on GNUstep (prerelease)

[Adrian Robert]

On Oct 14, 2004, at 10:27 PM, Richard Stallman wrote:

>     This is a modification of "Emacs on Aqua"
>     (http://emacs-on-aqua.sf.net), which traces its lineage back to an
>     original port of GNU Emacs to NeXTstep by Carl Edman, which was
>     successively modified for OpenStep, Rhapsody, and OS X, and updated
>     most recently to emacs version 20.7.  Hence the 8.0 version number.
>
> Can you find all the authors of those changes, so we could get
> legal papers from them in order to install this?

I'm willing to try.  (And I've already signed over copyright for my own 
FSF contributions.)  Actually I believe that some of the authors should 
have papers on file already.  Who would I contact at FSF/records to 
verify this?

Note I assume you are talking about the case if we go the route of 
updating the ns-emacs codebase to 21.  If we go the route of starting 
from the Carbon-based version, it is OK copyright-wise to use the 
ns-emacs code as a reference as long as major chunks are not copied 
directly over, correct?


>     If this happens, we will eventually be interested in trying to 
> bring
>     this port up to Emacs 21.  I have heard that there were a lot of
>     internal changes to the Emacs graphical terminal code from 20 to 
> 21,
>     and therefore it may end up being easier to start from the current
>     Carbon-based Emacs for OS X to do this.
>
> Since we support a greater variety of display platforms and toolkits
> now, the newer code might also be easier to do this in.

Is there a summary available anywhere of what the main internal changes 
to display management were?  I know that, functionally, images, 
proportional fonts, and the fringe are the main additions.  But maybe 
there was significant internal revamping?  (I know I can just go and 
peruse the code but it might save some time to have a little 
guidance..)

Re: Emacs on GNUstep (prerelease)

[Richard Stallman]

The first step is to figure out a complete list of authors; everyone
who wrote more than about 10 lines of material that is in the current
version.  Once you provide this list, we can quickly check who has
signed papers and who has not.

    I'm willing to try.  (And I've already signed over copyright for my own 
    FSF contributions.)

You signed papers for your changes and enhancements to GNUSTEP.
These papers do not cover changes and enhancements to Emacs,
so we would need separate papers for them.

    Note I assume you are talking about the case if we go the route of 
    updating the ns-emacs codebase to 21.  If we go the route of starting 
    from the Carbon-based version, it is OK copyright-wise to use the 
    ns-emacs code as a reference as long as major chunks are not copied 
    directly over, correct?

If you use it as a reference for ideas alone, that does not count as
copying; but if you paraphrase the code, that does legally count as
copying under copyright law, so we would still need papers from the
authors of the old code.

    Is there a summary available anywhere of what the main internal changes 
    to display management were?  I know that, functionally, images, 
    proportional fonts, and the fringe are the main additions.  But maybe 
    there was significant internal revamping?

The display code as a whole has not been redesigned--only some local
parts.  I am not sure which parts.