Gosling Emacs: Difference between revisions
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| author = [[James Gosling]] | | author = [[James Gosling]] | ||
| developer = | | developer = UniPress | ||
| released = {{Start date and age|1981}} | | released = {{Start date and age|1981}} | ||
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==Distribution== | ==Distribution== | ||
Since Gosling had permitted its unrestricted redistribution, [[Richard Stallman]] used some Gosling Emacs code in the initial version of [[GNU Emacs]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property |author1=Christopher Kelty |author2=Mario Biagioli |author3=Peter Jaszi |author4=Martha Woodmansee |year=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226172491 |quote=...Stallman was using code from Gosling, based on permission that Gosling had given to Labalme, but Labalme had written code for Gosling that he had commercialized without telling Labalme.}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|title=Oral History of James Gosling, part 1 of 2|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ6XHroNewc |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/TJ6XHroNewc| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|language=en|access-date=2019-10-14}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Among other things, he rewrote part of the Gosling code headed by the skull-and-crossbones comment and made it "...shorter, faster, clearer and more extensible."<ref name="rms-slashdot"/> | Since Gosling had permitted its unrestricted redistribution, [[Richard Stallman]] used some Gosling Emacs code in the initial version of [[GNU Emacs]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property |author1=Christopher Kelty |author2=Mario Biagioli |author3=Peter Jaszi |author4=Martha Woodmansee |year=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226172491 |quote=...Stallman was using code from Gosling, based on permission that Gosling had given to Labalme, but Labalme had written code for Gosling that he had commercialized without telling Labalme.}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|title=Oral History of James Gosling, part 1 of 2| date=9 October 2019 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ6XHroNewc |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/TJ6XHroNewc| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|language=en|access-date=2019-10-14}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Among other things, he rewrote part of the Gosling code headed by the skull-and-crossbones comment and made it "...shorter, faster, clearer and more extensible."<ref name="rms-slashdot"/> | ||
In 1983 UniPress began selling Gosling Emacs on [[Unix]] for $395 and on [[OpenVMS|VMS]] for $2,500, marketing it as "EMACS–multi-window text editor (Gosling version)".<ref name="byte198312">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-12/1983_12_BYTE_08-12_Easy_Software#page/n335/mode/2up/search/unipress+emacs | title=Unix Spoken Here / and MS-DOS, and VMS too! | work=BYTE | date=Dec 1983 | access-date=8 March 2016 | pages=334 | type=advertisement}}</ref> | In 1983 UniPress began selling Gosling Emacs on [[Unix]] for $395 and on [[OpenVMS|VMS]] for $2,500, marketing it as "EMACS–multi-window text editor (Gosling version)".<ref name="byte198312">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-12/1983_12_BYTE_08-12_Easy_Software#page/n335/mode/2up/search/unipress+emacs | title=Unix Spoken Here / and MS-DOS, and VMS too! | work=BYTE | date=Dec 1983 | access-date=8 March 2016 | pages=334 | type=advertisement}}</ref> | ||
Controversially, | Controversially, UniPress asked Stallman to stop distributing his version of Emacs for Unix.<ref name=faif7>{{cite book|chapter=7. A Stark Moral Choice|chapter-url=https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch07.html|title=Free as in freedom|isbn=0-596-00287-4|author=Sam Williams|year=2002|publisher="O'Reilly Media, Inc." |quote=According to the developer, Gosling, while a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon, had assured early collaborators that their work would remain accessible. When UniPress caught wind of Stallman's project, however, the company threatened to enforce the copyright...In the course of reverse-engineering Gosling's interpreter, Stallman would create a fully functional Lisp interpreter, rendering the need for Gosling's original interpreter moot. |url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/freeasinfreedomr00will}}</ref> | ||
UniPress never took legal action against Stallman or his nascent [[Free Software Foundation]],{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} believing "hobbyists and academics could never produce an Emacs that could compete" with their product.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} All Gosling Emacs code was removed from GNU Emacs by version 16.56 (July 1985),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html|title=Emacs timeline|author=[[Jamie Zawinski]]|date=8 March 1999}}</ref> with the possible exception of a few particularly involved sections of the display code.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} The latest versions of GNU Emacs (since August 2004) do not feature the skull-and-crossbones warning.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} | UniPress never took legal action against Stallman or his nascent [[Free Software Foundation]],{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} believing "hobbyists and academics could never produce an Emacs that could compete" with their product.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} All Gosling Emacs code was removed from GNU Emacs by version 16.56 (July 1985),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html|title=Emacs timeline|author=[[Jamie Zawinski]]|date=8 March 1999}}</ref> with the possible exception of a few particularly involved sections of the display code.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} The latest versions of GNU Emacs (since August 2004) do not feature the skull-and-crossbones warning.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} | ||
Latest revision as of 04:58, 18 November 2025
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Main other Gosling Emacs (often shortened to "Gosmacs" or "gmacs") is a discontinued Emacs implementation written in 1981 by James Gosling in C.[1]
Gosling initially allowed Gosling Emacs to be redistributed with no formal restrictions, as required by the "Emacs commune" since the 1970s,[2] only asking for a letter acknowledging his authorship.[3] Later, wishing to move on and after a failed search for people who would maintain it under the same rights, he finally sold his version of Emacs to UniPress because they agreed to sell it under reasonable terms. The dispute between Richard Stallman and UniPress inspired the creation of the first formal license for Emacs, which later became the GPL, as Congress had introduced copyright for software in 1980.[4]
Features
Gosling Emacs was especially noteworthy because of the effective redisplay code,[5] which used a dynamic programming technique to solve the classical string-to-string correction problem. The algorithm was quite sophisticated; that section of the source was headed by a skull-and-crossbones in ASCII art,[6] warning any would-be improver that even if they thought they understood how the display code worked, they probably did not.[7]
Distribution
Since Gosling had permitted its unrestricted redistribution, Richard Stallman used some Gosling Emacs code in the initial version of GNU Emacs.[8][9] Among other things, he rewrote part of the Gosling code headed by the skull-and-crossbones comment and made it "...shorter, faster, clearer and more extensible."[7]
In 1983 UniPress began selling Gosling Emacs on Unix for $395 and on VMS for $2,500, marketing it as "EMACS–multi-window text editor (Gosling version)".[10]
Controversially, UniPress asked Stallman to stop distributing his version of Emacs for Unix.[11] UniPress never took legal action against Stallman or his nascent Free Software Foundation,Script error: No such module "Unsubst". believing "hobbyists and academics could never produce an Emacs that could compete" with their product.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". All Gosling Emacs code was removed from GNU Emacs by version 16.56 (July 1985),[12] with the possible exception of a few particularly involved sections of the display code.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". The latest versions of GNU Emacs (since August 2004) do not feature the skull-and-crossbones warning.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Extension language
Its extension language, Mocklisp, has a syntax that appears similar to Lisp, but Mocklisp does not have lists, only strings and arrays. The Mocklisp interpreter, built by Gosling and a collaborator, was replaced by a full Lisp interpreter in GNU Emacs.[11]
References
- Christopher Kelty, "EMACS, grep, and UNIX: authorship, invention and translation in software", https://web.archive.org/web/20110728022656/http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/~ashawley/gnu/emacs/ConText-Kelty.pdf
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