This chapter contains general questions having to do with Emacs, the Free Software Foundation, and related organizations.
The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and look-and-feel copyrights. To get more information, feel free to contact the LPF via e-mail or otherwise. You may also contact @email{jbw@cs.bu.edu, Joe Wells}; he will be happy to talk to you about the LPF.
You can find more information about the LPF in the file `etc/LPF'. More papers describing the LPF's views are available on the Internet and also from @uref{http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/, the LPF home page}.
The real legal meaning of the GNU General Public License (copyleft) will only be known if and when a judge rules on its validity and scope. There has never been a copyright infringement case involving the GPL to set any precedents. Please take any discussion regarding this issue to the newsgroup @uref{news:gnu.misc.discuss}, which was created to hold the extensive flame wars on the subject.
RMS writes:
The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the spirit, which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work pertaining to Emacs should also be free software. "Free" means that all users have the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs. To make sure everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you distribute any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the recipients the same freedom that you enjoyed.
The file `etc/MAILINGLISTS' describes the purpose of each GNU mailing list. (See section What informational files are available for Emacs?, if you want a copy of the file.) For those lists which are gatewayed with newsgroups, it lists both the newsgroup name and the mailing list address.
The newsgroup @uref{news:comp.emacs} is for discussion of Emacs programs in general. This includes Emacs along with various other implementations, such as XEmacs, JOVE, MicroEmacs, Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, and Epsilon.
Many people post Emacs questions to @uref{news:comp.emacs} because they
don't receive any of the gnu.* newsgroups. Arguments have been
made both for and against posting GNU-Emacs-specific material to
@uref{news:comp.emacs}. You have to decide for yourself.
Messages advocating "non-free" software are considered unacceptable on
any of the gnu.* newsgroups except for @uref{news:gnu.misc.discuss},
which was created to hold the extensive flame-wars on the subject.
"Non-free" software includes any software for which the end user can't
freely modify the source code and exchange enhancements. Be careful to
remove the gnu.* groups from the `Newsgroups:' line when
posting a followup that recommends such software.
@uref{news:gnu.emacs.bug} is a place where bug reports appear, but avoid posting bug reports to this newsgroup directly (see section Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs?).
The FSF has maintained archives of all of the GNU mailing lists for many years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage. The archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual postings from, but pretty much everything is there.
The archive is at @uref{ftp://ftp-mailing-list-archives.gnu.org}.
As of this writing, the archives are not yet working.
Web-based Usenet search services, such as
@uref{http://www.dejanews.com, DejaNews}, also archive the
gnu.* groups.
The correct way to report Emacs bugs is by e-mail to @email{bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org}. Anything sent here also appears in the newsgroup @uref{news:gnu.emacs.bug}, but please use e-mail instead of news to submit the bug report. This ensures a reliable return address so you can be contacted for further details.
Be sure to read the "Bugs" section of the Emacs manual before reporting a bug to bug-gnu-emacs! The manual describes in detail how to submit a useful bug report. (See section How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?, if you don't know how to read the manual.)
RMS says:
Sending bug reports to @email{help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org} (which has the effect of posting on @uref{news:gnu.emacs.help}) is undesirable because it takes the time of an unnecessarily large group of people, most of whom are just users and have no idea how to fix these problem. @email{bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org} reaches a much smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do and have expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than the others.
RMS says it is sometimes fine to post to @uref{news:gnu.emacs.help}:
If you have reported a bug and you don't hear about a possible fix, then after a suitable delay (such as a week) it is okay to post on
gnu.emacs.helpasking if anyone can help you.
If you are unsure whether you have found a bug, consider the following non-exhaustive list, courtesy of RMS:
If Emacs crashes, that is a bug. If Emacs gets compilation errors while building, that is a bug. If Emacs crashes while building, that is a bug. If Lisp code does not do what the documentation says it does, that is a bug.
If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named list, you might be able to unsubscribe from it by sending a request to the address @email{list-request@gnu.org}. However, this will not work if you are not listed on the main mailing list, but instead receive the mail from a distribution point. In that case, you will have to track down at which distribution point you are listed. Inspecting the `Received' headers on the mail messages may help, along with liberal use of the `EXPN' or `VRFY' sendmail commands through `telnet site-address smtp'. Ask your postmaster for help, if you cannot figure out these details.
For details on how to order items directly from the FSF, see the @uref{http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html, GNU Web site}, and also the files `etc/ORDERS', `ORDERS.EUROPE', and `ORDERS.JAPAN'.
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