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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!labrea!kestrel!king
From: king@kestrel.ARPA (Dick King)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Backup files and auto-deletion
Message-ID: <16357@kestrel.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 12-Jan-87 12:29:40 EST
Article-I.D.: kestrel.16357
Posted: Mon Jan 12 12:29:40 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Jan-87 01:05:41 EST
References: <8701061806.AA05139@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> <357@mipos3.UUCP>
Organization: Kestrel Institute, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 57
In-reply-to: pinkas@mipos3.UUCP's message of 7 Jan 87 16:49:05 GMT

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.32.5 of Fri Dec 26 1986 on kestrel (berkeley-unix)


In article <357@mipos3.UUCP> pinkas@mipos3.UUCP (Israel Pinkas) writes:

   Path: kestrel!labrea!decwrl!sun!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!pinkas
   From: pinkas@mipos3.UUCP (Israel Pinkas)
   Newsgroups: comp.emacs
   Date: 7 Jan 87 16:49:05 GMT
   References: <8701061806.AA05139@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
   Reply-To: pinkas@mipos3.UUCP (Israel Pinkas)
   Organization: Intel, Santa Clara, CA
   Lines: 48
   Posted: Wed Jan  7 08:49:05 1987

   This message is directed to those that have been complaining about the
    behavior of backup files in GNU Emacs.

	.	.	.

						  Just remeber, Mr. Stallman
   does have a copyright on GNU Emacs, and it would be within his rights to
   charge licensing fees in the future.

	.	.	.

Neither is true.

The Free Software Foundation, not Stallman, owns the copyrights.

I wrote various improvements to emacs, including the numbered version
system.  [please don't flame me -- I anticipated disk space problems
and made it optional, by file, in two ways].  Free Software Foundation
and I have contracts in which FSF promises never to charge a royalty
for any of my various enhancements.  Presumably other contributers
have similar contracts, to an extent that only if Mr. Stallman were to
rewrite EMACS or retreat to some horrible early version could he start
charging fees.  All contributers would have to allow FSF [NOT rms] to
charge a fee before FSF could do so.


Also note that I have my copy, as do hundreds if not thousands of
other sites, and if FSF started to charge a fee I and the others
could, and many probably would, continue to redistribute without a
fee.  


RMS could tire of the project tomorrow.  If that happens I suspect
bugs will continue to get fixed [I would fix some] although finding an
"official" home for the "standard" sources would be a bit of a
problem.

   -Israel
   -- 
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-dick