Emacs – The Editor of the Revolution
The great revolutionary struggle for software freedom would not be possible without the right tools. “The right tool” is known by the name of Emacs.1 It embodies the freedom we are fighting for like no other computer program. The freedom to do with a program whatever you want; the freedom to turn a text editor into a web browser, or an email client, or a video editor; the freedom to share your crazy inventions with other revolutionaries.
It shows what free software is all about, how a program can be built that lets you turn it inside out, rewrite parts of it, extend it in ways that no one thought about before, all without ever having to restart it. It shows how all computer programs should be built, by building functionality around freedom, instead of limiting freedom in the name of functionality.
No two Emacs will be the same, just as no two users are the same. Like a true GNUerilla fighter, it will adapt to its surroundings, navigate the jungle of plain text and text-based protocols, fight against counter-revolutionary binary files. One Emacs can fight like a hundred other programs, whether they call themselves text editors, IDEs, email clients,2 RSS readers,3 video editors,4 or even “operating systems.”5
It might not be popular with the people who never used it, who never went past any initial irritation caused by old habits. But Emacs has its own ways of recruiting new fighters, of ensuring that the revolution will continue. It will weather the waves of new proprietary editors. It will be a shelter in the current “AI” storm, and the next, it will adapt to whatever may lie ahead.
The day may come when there are no more files to edit. When there are no more emails to read, no more thoughts to organize.6 But it is not this day.
An hour of broken keyboards and shattered screens, when the age of Emacs comes crashing down.
But it is not this day.
This day we edit! This day, we write our programs, send our emails, and ride across the great textual plains on this most glorious of GNU programs!
By all that you hold dear on this good computer, use Emacs!7
