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Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 17:54:42 -0500
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From: Bill Dubuque <wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
To: hniksic@srce.hr
Cc: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: Porting XEmacs to Windows NT or 95.

  From: Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr>
  Date: 18 Dec 1996 21:35:07 +0100

  Bill Dubuque (wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu) wrote:
  > Win-Emacs is a native XEmacs port to MS-Windows (Win3.1, Win95, NT).
  > Currently its based upon XEmacs 19.6, but it will eventually be
  > upgraded to the latest version of XEmacs (it was implemented by
  > none other than Ben Wing, former XEmacs developer/maintainer ...
  > I'm one of the maintainers/developers).

  Is Win-Emacs free (it should be, since Emacs/XEmacs are distributed
  under the GPL)?  If it is, why aren't Win-Emacs and the current XEmacs
  merged?

Win-Emacs comes in two versions. A free version (with no support)
that is nagware, and a fully supported commercial version with no nag.
The two versions are identical except for the nag. Even with the nag,
the free version is widely used (I used it myself for over a year).

See Pearl's home page for details of cost, licensing etc. It is
not in violation of the GPL since Pearl is charging for their
proprietary X emulation DLL, support etc.

Some may not agree with such a policy, but the fact is that with
revenues from such Pearl was able to provide a top-notch XEmacs
for MS-Windows for the past few years, long before anyone else
did, and they were generous enough to make it freely available
(modulo the nag). Without such there would have been no quality
GUI (X)Emacs for people stuck under MS-Windows.

Pearl was original founded by some people at Franz, who have also
recently anounced that their ACL Lisp will be freely available
for Linux. The Lisp/Emacs community owes them much respect for 
their generosity.

Disclaimer: I occasionally consult for both companies, although 
in these areas I've done far more volunteer work than paid.

http://www.pearlsoft.com/
http://www.franz.com/

-Bill Dubuque

