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From: jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West)
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Commercial vs. Public Domain
Message-ID: <969@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 18:08:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.969
Posted: Wed Jul 10 18:08:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 10:28:50 EDT
Organization: CACI, Inc - Federal, La Jolla
Lines: 30

The July 1985 Digital Review (an advertising throwaway mag aimed at the 
DEC-compatible market) contains an article about Emacs, "Have it Your Way" 
by Jane Penner Silks (p.93).  Given the recent raging controversy of 
distribution rights, nonetheless I think it goes a bit far:

	....[EMACS was] developed by Richard M. Stallman at
	the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the '70s
	as an extension to the more primitive TECO text editor,
	the fast, flexible EMACS soon became public-domain
	software and spawned dozens of look-alikes, subsets and
	commercial versions.
	    Today, although it HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE PUBLIC
	DOMAIN, [emphasis mine], EMACS is as powerful and
	customizable as ever.  There are currently two commercial
	versions of EMACS available to VAX users, one from CCA Uniworks,
	Inc. of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and one from Unipress Software, 
	Inc., of Edison, New Jersey, which is based on the updated UNIX 
	version of EMACS written in 1983 by James Gosling at 
	Carnegie-Mellon University.  The two programs offer the full range
	of EMACS features and now run on VAXes under VMS as well as UNIX.

The remainder reviews the two commercial VMS versions, notes costs
(Unipress: $2,500 VMS binary, $7,000 VMS source, $995 UNIX source + 
25% annually for maintenance; CCA: $1,900 or $5,000 VMS, $850 or $950
UNIX + $800/year maintenance).

It does recommend EMACS wholeheartedly, however.

If you'd like to send any comments directly, the address is Reader Input, 
DR, 160 State Street, Sixth Floor, Boston, MA 02109.