On 12.12.99 at 15:41, Gunnar Evermann <ge204(a)eng.cam.ac.uk&gt; wrote: And this bothered him because...? Sure, but why be an asshole about it? Since XEmacs gets the modifications once they are released anyway, all he achieves with this attitude is to further his reputation as a fanatic with whom a rational conversation is impossible. What does it gain him? (I assume this is a unilateral decision from rms?) Well, I appreciate the problems in this area. Since the FSF needs to own the copyright to all their code, a merge isn't practical. Did anyone try to figure this stuff out with him? The only reason I can see that XEmacs developers shouldn't get access to the pre-release code is to hamper their efforts. This motivation doesn't really jive with the fancy speeches about Freedom so there must either be a more substansive reason for it or a simple hangup dating back to the days of the original fork. Wouldn't it be possible to persuade him?