XEmacs

XEmacs is a graphical- and console-based text editor which runs on almost any Unix-like operating system as well as Microsoft Windows. XEmacs is a fork, based on a version of GNU Emacs from the late 1980s. Any user can download, use, and modify XEmacs as free software available under the GNU General Public License version 2 or any later version.

History

Between 1987 and 1993 significant delays occurred in bringing out a new version of GNU Emacs (presumed to be version 19). In the late 1980s, Richard P. Gabriel's Lucid Inc. faced a requirement to ship Emacs to support the Energize C++ IDE. So Lucid recruited a team to improve and extend the code, with the intention that their new version, released in 1991, would form the basis of GNU Emacs version 19. However, they did not have time to wait for their changes to be accepted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Lucid continued developing and maintaining their version of Emacs, while the FSF released version 19 of GNU Emacs a year later, while merging some of the code and adapting some other parts.