X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f X-Recipient: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:16:18 +0200 From: Eli Zaretskii Subject: Re: DJGPP port of Emacs 23 In-reply-to: <108b48a9-ec91-4c2f-a5ac-b7260b42bb38@v42g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> X-012-Sender: halo1 AT inter DOT net DOT il To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Message-id: References: <108b48a9-ec91-4c2f-a5ac-b7260b42bb38 AT v42g2000yqj DOT googlegroups DOT com> Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk > From: Rugxulo > Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:10:43 -0800 (PST) > > Apparently, RMS himself wrote to news://gnu.emacs.announce on Nov. 30, > 2007 the following: > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > "Deleting Emacs support for obsolete platforms" > > "In Emacs 23 we are thinking of deleting Emacs support for the > systems > and computers listed below, because we think they are obsolete and > not useful. > > If you know of a reason to keep support for any of those platforms, > please send an explanation to emacs-obsolete-poll _AT_ gnu _DOT_ org. > We will > try to keep the support for platforms that people actually want. > > MSDOS That was before I announced on the Emacs developer's list that I'm reviving the DOS port. > Anyone else find it strange that MSDOS is first on the list? Of all > those machines, surely the MSDOS part doesn't take up the most space > and is much more common and less exotic. There were (and still are) several active contributors to Emacs development who are on a quest to remove code that uses #ifdef's related to obsolete platforms. Around the time of the announcement you mention above, Emacs got a multi-tty feature merged in, which allows a single Emacs session, on GNU/Linux and Unix systems only, to use several different terminals, even if some of them are character-mode tty's, and mix GUI and character-mode displays in a single session. This allows, for example, to have a GUI session working in your office to be contacted via ssh from outside, to continue working from home on the same session. This multi-tty merge severely broke the DOS port, so those people mentioned above started lobbying for removing the DOS port, because it was broken anyway, and nobody, certainly not them, wanted to fix it. > Why does GNU (and just the modern world in general) love to > deprecate things that are working fine?? Grrrr.... It's not GNU, and certainly not Richard Stallman himself. In fact, Richard was one of the few who supported me when I objected to removing the code specific to the DOS port. But the others pressed and pressed... Anyway, this is all history now, as long as I have the small amount of time it takes to keep the DOS port alive. > Anyways, at least GNU Emacs builds again now (thanks, Eli !) although > I'm still unsure about Vista's issues. But if we want them to not > deprecate / delete us, we'd all better pitch in and test / use / > contribute. Mkay? Right. TIA