Updating etc/DISTRIB

Updating etc/DISTRIB

[Glenn Morris]

I was wondering if it is OK if I make some updates to etc/DISTRIB in
Emacs; or would you prefer to keep it more as a form of historical
document?

Example patch follows. May I also change the paragraph "However, we
plan to continue..." to use the first person plural throughout?

*** etc/DISTRIB	2010-01-13 08:35:10 +0000
--- etc/DISTRIB	2010-10-12 00:02:35 +0000
***************
*** 1,12 ****
  						-*- text -*-
! For an order form for all Emacs and FSF distributions deliverable from
! the USA, see http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.
! \f
! 	   GNU Emacs availability information, October 2000
  
  Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995,
!   1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
!   Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  See the end of the file for license conditions.
  
  
--- 1,9 ----
  						-*- text -*-
!             GNU Emacs availability information
  
  Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995,
!   1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,
!   2010  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  See the end of the file for license conditions.
  
  
***************
*** 29,59 ****
  (including modified versions) has the freedom to redistribute and
  change it.
  
! If you do not know anyone to get a copy of GNU Emacs from, you can
! order a cd-rom from the Free Software Foundation.  We distribute
! several Emacs versions.  We also distribute nicely typeset copies of
! the Emacs user manual, Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, the Emacs
! reference card, etc.  See http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.
! 
! If you have Internet access, you can copy the latest Emacs
! distribution from hosts, such as ftp.gnu.org.  There are several ways
! to do this; see http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html for more
! information.
  
  Emacs has been run on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and on many
  Unix systems, on a variety of types of cpu, as well as on MSDOS,
! Windows and MacOS.  It also formerly worked on VMS and on Apollo
! computers, though with some deficiencies that reflect problems in
! these operating systems.  See the file `MACHINES' in this directory
! (see above) for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested
  on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings.
  
- Note that there is significant variation between Unix systems
- supposedly running the same version of Unix; it is possible that what
- works in GNU Emacs for me does not work on your system due to such an
- incompatibility.  Since I must avoid reading Unix source code, I
- cannot even guess what such problems may exist.
- 
  GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public
  License for full details, in the file `COPYING' in this directory (see
  above)), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any
--- 26,42 ----
  (including modified versions) has the freedom to redistribute and
  change it.
  
! For information on how to get GNU software, see
! http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html. Printed copies of GNU
! manuals, including the Emacs manual, are available from the FSF's
! online store at http://shop.fsf.org.
  
  Emacs has been run on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and on many
  Unix systems, on a variety of types of cpu, as well as on MSDOS,
! Windows and MacOS.  See the file `etc/MACHINES' in the Emacs
! distribution for a full list of machines that GNU Emacs has been tested
  on, with machine-specific installation notes and warnings.
  
  GNU Emacs is distributed with no warranty (see the General Public
  License for full details, in the file `COPYING' in this directory (see
  above)), and neither I nor the Free Software Foundation promises any
***************
*** 81,91 ****
  product and divide it by five, that is a good amount.
  
  If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
! donation: send me or the Foundation what you feel Emacs has been worth
! to you.  If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it
! as free software, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial
! practices typical of software developers, reward me.  If you would
! like the Foundation to develop more free software, contribute.
  
  Your donations will help to support the development of additional GNU
  software.  GNU/Linux systems (variants of GNU, based on the kernel
--- 64,74 ----
  product and divide it by five, that is a good amount.
  
  If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
! donation via https://my.fsf.org/donate.  Donate what you feel Emacs
! has been worth to you.  If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and
! distribute it as free software, rather than following the obstructive
! and antisocial practices typical of software developers, reward me.
! If you would like the Foundation to develop more free software, contribute.
  
  Your donations will help to support the development of additional GNU
  software.  GNU/Linux systems (variants of GNU, based on the kernel

Re: Updating etc/DISTRIB

[Richard Stallman]

For the most part, those changes are good, but I disagree with some details.

Why do you propose deleting this?

    ! For an order form for all Emacs and FSF distributions deliverable from
    ! the USA, see http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.

Is it that that URL is obsolete?  If so, let's update that sentence
rather than deleting it.

For this,

      If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
    ! donation: send me or the Foundation what you feel Emacs has been worth
    ! to you.  If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it
    ! as free software, rather than following the obstructive and antisocial
    ! practices typical of software developers, reward me.  If you would
    ! like the Foundation to develop more free software, contribute.

please use this changed text:

      If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
    donation: send me (please email me about how) or the Foundation
    (https://my.fsf.org/donate) what you feel Emacs has been worth to
    you.  If you are glad that I developed GNU Emacs and distribute it
    as free software, rather than following the obstructive and
    antisocial practices of proprietary software, you can reward me.
    If you would like the Foundation to do more to forward the cause
    of free software, you can contribute.

Re: Updating etc/DISTRIB

[Glenn Morris]

Richard Stallman wrote:

> Why do you propose deleting this?
>
>     ! For an order form for all Emacs and FSF distributions deliverable from
>     ! the USA, see http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.
>
> Is it that that URL is obsolete?  If so, let's update that sentence
> rather than deleting it.

I propose deleting it because I thought it referred to ordering GNU
software on a CD from the FSF, and that service is no longer offered (?).
The URL itself just redirects to http://shop.fsf.org/ nowadays, and I
put a link to that later on in the file. It does not seem necessary to
have it at the top as well.

> For this,
>
>       If you like GNU Emacs, please express your satisfaction with a
[...]
> please use this changed text:
[...]

OK.

Re: Updating etc/DISTRIB

[Richard Stallman]

    I propose deleting it because I thought it referred to ordering GNU
    software on a CD from the FSF, and that service is no longer offered (?).
    The URL itself just redirects to http://shop.fsf.org/ nowadays, and I
    put a link to that later on in the file. It does not seem necessary to
    have it at the top as well.

Ok.