modifying variables without having to use Lisp; and automatic conversion
of files from Macintosh, Microsoft, and Unix platforms.
-
-@node Difference between Emacs and XEmacs
-@section What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly Lucid Emacs)?
+@node What was XEmacs?
+@section What was XEmacs?
@cindex XEmacs
-@cindex Difference Emacs and XEmacs
-@cindex Lucid Emacs
-@cindex Epoch
XEmacs was a branch version of Emacs that is no longer actively
- developed. XEmacs last released a new version on January 30, 2009,
- and it lacks many important features that exist in Emacs. Since its
- development has stopped, we do not expect to see any new releases.
+ developed. XEmacs was first called Lucid Emacs, and was initially
+ derived from a prerelease version of Emacs 19. In this FAQ, we use
+ the name ``Emacs'' only for the official version.
+
+ XEmacs last released a new version on January 30, 2009, and it lacks
+ many important features that exist in Emacs. In the past, it was not
+ uncommon for Emacs packages to include code for compatibility with
+ XEmacs. Nowadays, although some packages still maintain such
+ compatibility code, several of the more popular built-in and third
+ party packages have either stopped supporting XEmacs or were developed
+ exclusively for Emacs.
-Some XEmacs code has been contributed to Emacs, and we would like to
-use other parts, but the earlier XEmacs maintainers did not always
-keep track of the authors of contributed code, which makes it
-impossible for the FSF to get copyright papers signed for that code.
-(The FSF requires these papers for all the code included in the Emacs
-release, aside from generic C support packages that retain their
-separate identity and are not integrated into the code of Emacs
-proper.)
+In the past, it was not uncommon for Emacs packages to include code
+for compatibility with XEmacs. Nowadays, most built-in and third party
+packages have either stopped supporting XEmacs or were developed
+exclusively for Emacs.
+XEmacs was initially derived from a prerelease version of Emacs 19.
If you want to talk about these two versions and distinguish them,
please call them ``Emacs'' and ``XEmacs.'' To contrast ``XEmacs''
with ``GNU Emacs'' would be misleading, since XEmacs too has its