xemacs vs emacs

[David Kastrup]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

> David Kastrup writes:
>
>  > I don't get your point.  Windows is not free software either and Emacs
>  > runs on it just fine.
>
> David Reitter explains it here:
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-03/msg00785.html
>
> and Stefan Monnier confirmed that David's reasoning conforms to Emacs
> policy in a private conversation later.

Just what I said: Apple IP does not play into it at all.  You are
confusing this with Apple mindshare: GNU software, at least GNU Emacs,
does not strive to implement features that enhance Emacs only on
proprietary platforms.

But that does not mean that features customarily associated with the
user experience on a given platform have to be ruled out from Emacs: as
long as there is a useful equivalent done for GNU, there is no problem
in implementing the feature.

Also the question of different defaults is best tackled with
customization themes (with a different default theme picked on different
platforms).  That way, somebody who learnt Emacs on Windows has the
choice to use it on MacOSX just like he is accustomed to on Windows, and
vice versa.

The current MacOSX-only behavior of Aquamacs is dividing Emacs users
instead of giving them the relief of unification.

All of this has nothing to do at all with Apple IP.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum