Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!umd5!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Reprise: If Emacs is a text editor, Unix is a C compiler
Message-ID: <11053@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 88 21:57:34 GMT
References: <8803291504.AA08952@unipress.uucp> <9890@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <10411@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 30

[various speculations about GNU Emacs possibly containing Gosling Emacs
regular expression code]

I find it interesting to note that the Gosling Emacs regex code was
originally written by Tom London.  Search.c contains or contained
the following comment:

/*
 * Modified Aug. 12, 1981 by Tom London to include regular expressions
 * as in ed.  RE stuff hacked over extensivly by jag to correct a few major
 * problems, mainly dealing with searching within the buffer rather than
 * copying each line to a separate array.  Newlines can now appear in RE's.
 */

Were I the suspicious type, I might wonder whether Tom London's regex
code were based upon that in ed.  In any case I suspect Tom was at Bell
Labs at the time (the 32V compiler, even the one that survives in
4.3BSD, is full of code by `tbl'---Thomas B. London?---and the Vax
compiler was no doubt done around 1978--1980) and hence the code might
conceivably lie under AT&T's control.

None of this is grounded in anything at all, of course, but it seems
to me the most straightforward approach is for everyone to to give
everything away.  Then no one need decide what is `based upon' what,
and just how much changing or rewriting or `extensive hacking over'
is necessary before the code magically changes ownership.  But I can
see that the windows in this tower have fogged over with ivory again.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris