-*- text -*- For an order form for all Emacs and FSF distributions deliverable from the USA, see the file `ORDERS' in this directory (etc/ in the GNU Emacs distribution or http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html). For a European order form, see `ORDERS.EUROPE'. For a Japan order form, see `ORDERS.JAPAN'. GNU Emacs availability information, October 2000 Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved. GNU Emacs is legally owned by the Free Software Foundation, but we regard the foundation more as its custodian on behalf of the public. In the GNU project, when we speak of "free software", this refers to liberty, not price. Specifically, it refers to the users' freedom to study, copy, change and improve the software. Sometimes users pay money for copies of GNU software, and sometimes they get copies at no charge. But regardless of how they got the software, or whether it was modified by anyone else along the way, they have the freedom to copy and change it--those freedoms are what "free software" means. The precise conditions for copying and modification are stated in the document "GNU General Public License," a copy of which is required to be distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs. It is usually in a file named `COPYING' in the same directory as this file. These conditions are designed to make sure that everyone who has a copy of GNU Emacs (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 file `ORDERS', or visit 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. It also works 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. There is also an MS-DOS version that works on MS-DOS and all platforms that have some kind of ``DOS box'', and also an MS-Windows and a Mac version. 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 kind of support or assistance to users. The foundation keeps a list of people who are willing to offer support and assistance for hire. See http://www.gnu.org/help/gethelp.html. However, we plan to continue to improve GNU Emacs and keep it reliable, so please send me any complaints and suggestions you have. I will probably fix anything that I consider a malfunction. I may make improvements that are suggested, but I may choose not to. If you are on the Internet, report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. You can use the Emacs command M-x report-bug RET to mail a bug report. Please read the Bugs section of the Emacs manual before reporting bugs. General questions about the GNU Project can be asked of gnu@gnu.org. If you are a computer manufacturer, I encourage you to ship a copy of GNU Emacs with every computer you deliver. The same copying permission terms apply to computer manufacturers as to everyone else. You should consider making a donation to help support the GNU project; if you estimate what it would cost to distribute some commercial 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 freeware, 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 Linux) have millions of users, but there is still much to be done. For more information on GNU, see the file `GNU' in this directory (see above). Richard M Stallman Chief GNUisance, President of the Free Software Foundation