* Re: status of the VMS port ?
2008-02-25 19:01 ` Richard Stallman
@ 2008-02-25 21:43 ` Dan Nicolaescu
2008-02-26 23:46 ` Richard Stallman
0 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread
From: Dan Nicolaescu @ 2008-02-25 21:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: rms; +Cc: emacs-devel
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> RMS said at some point that someone is working on making emacs work on
> VMS. Who is that person?
>
> Sorry, I do not remember.
>
> Unless someone comes forward and announces that he will work on getting
> the VMS in good shape, can we deprecate the port in 22.2 and remove it
> after that?
>
> Please do not be in such a rush to delete things!
You read too much into that. Let's just give VMS an equal opportunity
with the other platforms: to stay or go based on existence of users
+ willing maintainers.
Right now it's in a state of limbo: it does not build, but it's not dead
either...
> Before we delete this, we ought to do more than just wait and see if
> "someone comes forward". We should make a real effort to try to find
> the person. One way that we should certainly try is to search the
> emacs-devel archives for the past 5 years for "VMS".
I found this page:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsOnVMS
For your benefit the contents are below. The updates mentioined there
are almost 4 years old...
EmacsOnVMS
I'm currently porting GNU Emacs 21.2 to OpenVMS? 7.3-1, and
summarizing progress in this space. When the work is done,
only build tips will remain. --ttn
Current status
Rather than make everyone wait while I puzzle out the
copyright status of old VMS-specific files, I've decided to
expose the work-in-progress so others can play, too. Details
are available on the Emacs for VMS homepage:
* http://www.gnuvola.org/software/emacs-for-vms/
What works (that is, reproducibly w/o too much manual tweaking)
Configuration, "dump", file read/write, byte compilation,
timers and unixoid select(2) emulation, multiple
subprocesses (synch and asynch - implies dired, comint,
compile, and so forth), colors on console, filename
completion (with "magic" right square brace and slash key
bindings), network operations via open-network-stream.
Yes, that means M-x zone in color over ssh from a VMS
box. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." (HST)
Release methodology
The "public releases" will actually be in the form of checking
things into the GNU CVS repositories, updating the
Emacs for VMS page, and making the occasional announcement to
gnu-emacs-sources.
Commentary
Feel free to ignore the lunatic ramblings in this section.
* (2004-04-02) In debugging next-error (for M-x compile), I notice
that var compilation-error-regexp-alist for Emacs
19.28 used to support specification of a function to do further
parsing, beyond that which func
compilation-parse-errors would do. Dropping this support makes
for a cleaner design, evidently. Parsing must be one
of the least-loved branches of computer science.
* (2004-05-01) I asked the GNU Autoconf maintainers for vms-branch
write privs but the response was not encouraging, so
I've decided to publish "Autoconf for VMS" independently until a
time (if any) when merging maintenance efforts
becomes desirable.
+
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2004-04/msg00131.html
+
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2004-04/msg00205.html
+ http://www.gnuvola.org/software/autoconf-for-vms/
* (2005-03-22) There is a Bourne shell script PREP-ZIP available in
the distribution directory that can be used to
perform the first half of the bootstrap relatively painlessly (on
unixoid hosts). Observant readers will notice a
workaround for a methodology bug in the script.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Field Reports
Since there is no mailing list, this section is for those intrepid
spirits wishing to share experiences and tips building
Emacs for VMS.
* Autoconf for VMS requires GNU m4, and has been tested with
Richard Levitte's port of GNU m4 version 1.2. Newer
versions may or may not work. There is now a directory "m4" w/
source and an Alpha binary in the Autoconf for VMS
distribution dir.
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