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Date:	Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:16:18 +0200
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org>
Subject:	Re: DJGPP port of Emacs 23
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> From: Rugxulo <rugxulo AT gmail DOT com>
> Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:10:43 -0800 (PST)
> 
> Apparently, RMS himself wrote to news://gnu.emacs.announce on Nov. 30,
> 2007 the following:
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> "Deleting Emacs support for obsolete platforms"
> 
> "In Emacs 23 we are thinking of deleting Emacs support for the
> systems
> and computers listed below, because we think they are obsolete and
> not useful.
> 
> If you know of a reason to keep support for any of those platforms,
> please send an explanation to emacs-obsolete-poll _AT_ gnu _DOT_ org.
> We will
> try to keep the support for platforms that people actually want.
> 
> MSDOS

That was before I announced on the Emacs developer's list that I'm
reviving the DOS port.

> Anyone else find it strange that MSDOS is first on the list? Of all
> those machines, surely the MSDOS part doesn't take up the most space
> and is much more common and less exotic.

There were (and still are) several active contributors to Emacs
development who are on a quest to remove code that uses #ifdef's
related to obsolete platforms.  Around the time of the announcement
you mention above, Emacs got a multi-tty feature merged in, which
allows a single Emacs session, on GNU/Linux and Unix systems only, to
use several different terminals, even if some of them are
character-mode tty's, and mix GUI and character-mode displays in a
single session.  This allows, for example, to have a GUI session
working in your office to be contacted via ssh from outside, to
continue working from home on the same session.  This multi-tty merge
severely broke the DOS port, so those people mentioned above started
lobbying for removing the DOS port, because it was broken anyway, and
nobody, certainly not them, wanted to fix it.

> Why does GNU (and just the modern world in general) love to
> deprecate things that are working fine?? Grrrr....

It's not GNU, and certainly not Richard Stallman himself.  In fact,
Richard was one of the few who supported me when I objected to
removing the code specific to the DOS port.  But the others pressed
and pressed...

Anyway, this is all history now, as long as I have the small amount of
time it takes to keep the DOS port alive.

> Anyways, at least GNU Emacs builds again now (thanks, Eli !) although
> I'm still unsure about Vista's issues. But if we want them to not
> deprecate / delete us, we'd all better pitch in and test / use /
> contribute. Mkay?

Right.  TIA

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