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IANAKG (i am not a kernel guru), but as i understand the Hurd is running on top of Mach which is a microkernel. This is supposed to have some (at the moment still theoretical?) advantages such as running drivers in user space (and some potential speed improvements??).

I believe the idea is to replace Mach in the end by the more advanced L4 kernel, which is an area of active research.

If you're interested, take a look at Towards a New Strategy of OS Design - It explains what we're doing different with the Hurd, and what the core servers are used for.

Tks,
Jeff Bailey

"The gnu, also known as the wildebeest, is a striking animal native to Africa. It has a lifespan of up to 20 years, and is constantly on the move. Gnu are not the fastest of animals, and are therefore important prey for lions, hyenas, and other predators."

There's a compelling article on GPL enforceability here, worth a read and a think.

The GPL sets out how the user of the GPL would like the infringer to be treated, but until we have a court case where a court has ordered such compliance, we don't know. I welcome citations people may have.

No, the GPL does not set that out. The GPL sets out what one must do to comply; it says nothing about what the court is to do to an entity which is guilty of infringement (and indeed it can't, as such an entity may not have accepted the license at all). For some background on the enforcement process as it actually occurs, read Moglen's paper, Enforcing the GPL.

Clauses 4 and 5 of the GPL make it clear that what happens upon a breach of license is simple termination of that license, and the subsequent reversion to standard copyright law. If any person whose work is infringed requests specific performance (in particular, the release of an infringer's code) as remedy from a court, that will be their own decision -- and if and when the court declines to provide said remedy, that will be a test not of the GPL itself but only of the legal feasability of that particular remedy. It will most certainly not impact the ability to enforce the license through (say) obtaining a court order to halt any release or sale of infringing code, or findings of monetary damages, or any other alternate penalty.

Replying to this post indicates agreement with the following terms. All source code you have ever written (whether it includes this post or not) must be assigned to me.

Needless to say, I don't agree with said terms (not that it'd matter if I failed to make this explicit -- there's no valid contract, implied or otherwise, in my response; go look up the requirements for the same).

OK. I'll license my .sig under the Gnu Free Documentation License. Happy Hacking...

According to the GNU coding standards - this is not good code!

Please pardon the troll, it just struck me as a little odd...

Apple never said it was Free Software, they said it was Open Source.

I totally understand and appreciate the difference between the two movements. In fact much of what I've posted to Slashdot concerns this difference. I see this in a larger context though: what are the points of differences being referred to and how does this fit in with a broader view of society.

Being an "Open Source" license doesn't take away any of the sting of the points the FSF raised; the FSF's concerns are reasonable for an individual or business to consider. At the end of the day, one has to look at what is being asked of them in this license and decide if it is worth getting involved.

I think it's pretty clear by now that most developers are not getting involved with APSL-covered works so I wonder why this is. I think there's a good chance the FSF's reasons are why. I also think this is yet another case where paying attention to one's freedom and paying attention to ethics (Free Software) are better criteria for judging the worth of a license than paying attention to a development methodology aimed at pleasing businesses (Open Source).

Further, Apple only deviates from what the FSF wants in areas where it is prudent business practice.

I disagree. IBM licenses some of their original software under the GNU GPL and so do other smaller businesses. The GPL does not feature these ridiculous clauses.

All I'm asking is that if you make posts about how the ASPL deviates in a few ways from the GPL, that you remember in balance that it is still a perfectly equitable Open Source license and that those developers who would rather develop Open software than Free software will still get great utility out of it.

I spent my previous post in this thread describing how Apple retains and overextends their power as copyright holder in the APSL, so I'd hardly describe the APSL on balance as being "perfectly equitable" with licensees. The license is "Open Source", no doubt, but the unpopularity of the APSL compared to the GNU GPL tells me something else is afoot. It's hard to get "great utility" out of an APSL-covered work if Apple infringes on your patent and you want to leverage your rights in society to stop that infringement from continuing. Not everyone is interested in putting Apple's desires ahead of their own and not everyone considers Apple's overextension of copyright power equitable.

This is why it is sad that this thread became a giant GPL v. other licences debate when it could have talked about some interesting potential applications of this technology for Open Source developers.

I don't find the struggle between corporate power and the enrichment and sustainance of a commons to be sad at all. I think we need more discussion of and action against corporate overrepresentation. Furthermore, the GNU GPL is a widely used software license that is also listed by the Open Source Initiative as an accepted license. Thus it is eminently practical to discuss compatibility issues surrounding these two licenses even if you are interested in the Open Source movement.

"Three different levels of material harm come from such obstruction:

• Fewer people use the program.
• None of the users can adapt or fix the program.
• Other developers cannot learn from the program, or base new work on it.

The three levels of material harm waste part of the value that the program could contribute, but they cannot reduce it to zero. If they waste nearly all the value of the program, then writing the program harms society by at most the effort that went into writing the program. Arguably a program that is profitable to sell must provide some net direct material benefit.

However, taking account of the concomitant psychosocial harm, there is no limit to the harm that proprietary software development can do."

www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html

You also completely misunderstand the point of civil disobedience in your last sentence. Remember Thoreau went to jail. Cringley didn't say everyone break the law. He said break the law and let it be known that you are breaking the law. Clog up the courts to force the legislators to change the law. Breaking the law makes you a criminal. The extra steps are required before you can claim that you are practicing civil disobedience.

• AROS
  
• Virtual Acorn (an emulator but which emulates an OS, indeed)
  
• MenuetOS
  
• Debian GNU/Hurd
  
• Plan9
  

Linux doesn't compete against other operating systems? Damn, someone's going to have to tell Microsoft and Sun about that. They seem to be under a different impression.

Also, you and the FSF seem to be in a disagreement about the commercial nature of free software. Check out this page. (Scroll down to the paragraph that starts: "Free software" does not mean "non-commercial")

Sorry, I wanted to address this earlier, but in wanting cover the IP issues first, I forgot, but BlueGecko is wrong. First of all, Apple never sued any theme developers. What they did, however is send a cease and desist letter to all of the theme markers who used Apple trademarks. I hope you can at least understand that trademarks are a form of consumer protection, and that allowing people to clone established company's marks is confusing and hurtful to the consumer.

You want a world where one person discovers something useful, and then no one else can use that something without paying them.

Um, yeah that's exactly what I'm saying, and that's also what the Constitution says in Article 1 Section 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Now I agree that the most important clause of that section is "for a limited time". I don't think people should have an unlimited monopoly, but in order to encourage people to develop things we have the let them profit off from them.

The end goal is to either eliminate intellectual property all-together, or vastly reduce its duration and scope.

Is that the goal of the FSF? I hardly think so. Again if you can back that up with a link, I'd love it. If that really were the goal, then you'd think they'd be opposed to copyrighting their work, but if you look at the bottom every single page on gnu.org, guess what you'll see? Yep, a copyright notice

As far as who came up with the dock first, that's a nice screen shot of twm, but it's obviously a modern one (Netscape, Realplayer in what I'm guessing is the dock). Looks like NeXTStep and twm came out about the same time. NextStep 1.0 was released in 1986, with early releases as far back as 1989. TWM came with X11R1, and assuming the dock was a part of that it'd place it at about September 1987. So neither predates the other, but I did find an interesting usenet post from 1990 about how to configure your twm to look like NeXTStep. It atleast shows that the NeXTStep dock was significantly different/advanced from than whatever was included at the time in twm.

Linux doesn't compete against other operating systems? Damn, someone's going to have to tell Microsoft and Sun about that. They seem to be under a different impression.

Also, you and the FSF seem to be in a disagreement about the commercial nature of free software. Check out this page. (Scroll down to the paragraph that starts: "Free software" does not mean "non-commercial")

Sorry, I wanted to address this earlier, but in wanting cover the IP issues first, I forgot, but BlueGecko is wrong. First of all, Apple never sued any theme developers. What they did, however is send a cease and desist letter to all of the theme markers who used Apple trademarks. I hope you can at least understand that trademarks are a form of consumer protection, and that allowing people to clone established company's marks is confusing and hurtful to the consumer.

You want a world where one person discovers something useful, and then no one else can use that something without paying them.

Um, yeah that's exactly what I'm saying, and that's also what the Constitution says in Article 1 Section 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Now I agree that the most important clause of that section is "for a limited time". I don't think people should have an unlimited monopoly, but in order to encourage people to develop things we have the let them profit off from them.

The end goal is to either eliminate intellectual property all-together, or vastly reduce its duration and scope.

Is that the goal of the FSF? I hardly think so. Again if you can back that up with a link, I'd love it. If that really were the goal, then you'd think they'd be opposed to copyrighting their work, but if you look at the bottom every single page on gnu.org, guess what you'll see? Yep, a copyright notice

As far as who came up with the dock first, that's a nice screen shot of twm, but it's obviously a modern one (Netscape, Realplayer in what I'm guessing is the dock). Looks like NeXTStep and twm came out about the same time. NextStep 1.0 was released in 1986, with early releases as far back as 1989. TWM came with X11R1, and assuming the dock was a part of that it'd place it at about September 1987. So neither predates the other, but I did find an interesting usenet post from 1990 about how to configure your twm to look like NeXTStep. It atleast shows that the NeXTStep dock was significantly different/advanced from than whatever was included at the time in twm.

Quote from the article:

"We want to hit fans with the message that downloading music illegally is, as Britney Spears explains, the same as going into a CD store and stealing the CD," said Hilary Rosen of the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA).

"Too many people don't realise that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorised internet service, you're stealing music," she said.

The problem there is that you are NOT stealing, it is NOT the same as going into the CD store and swiping the CD. "Piracy" (or preferrably Unauthorized Copying) is breaking copyright law. In the eyes of the law, this is completely different than theft. I could understand if they take the somewhat biased view that Unauthorized Copying is similar to stealing from the artists, but to say it is the exact same thing as stealing is untrue. Hilary Rosen knows that more than anybody, but it is in her best interests to associate p2p file traders with pirates and thieves.

Of course new draconian laws in the US will likely give much harsher penalties to those who share files than to those who shoplift from stores. When will the madness stop?

You're right, Linux is not GNU. And GNU is not Linux. However, most distros *are* GNU. It just happens that HIS distro is not GNU.

> think X is a pretty big deal... What about Gnome
> and KDE?

RTFQ

This isn't simply a matter of "call it GNU/Linux or STFU". It's a matter of education. If you want to call the thing "Linux" only and educate people by explaining the history in 10 minutes, then do so.

Interesting to see that Slashdot has adopted GNU/Linux as the name for the "operating system previously known as Linux" as proposed by the FSF!

XaoS is a really fun program to play around with for even on mathmaticly inclide people.

XaoS is a fast portable real-time interactive fractal zoomer. It displays the Mandelbrot set (among other escape time fractals) and allows you zoom smoothly into the fractal. It uses lots of optimization techniques to save about 97% of calculations necessary to calculate next frame to make zooming as fast as possible.

And for those who can spare a few pennies for a distro, there is always CheapBytes.

But the author does have an interesting point. Kind of like the question: Why did someone pay me $1010 USD for the Eaglehorn bow a week after the Diablo II xpack was released? ;)

This is all just proof positive that the real wealth resides in the human mind, not in a few flipping bits.

It [Gnucleus] isn't commercial -- though it has been hijacked and put in "commercial" packages -- Morpheus for example, IIRC.

GNU GPL-covered software and "commercial" software are not opposites. It can be okay to distribute GPL-covered software commercially.

It [Gnucleus] isn't commercial -- though it has been hijacked and put in "commercial" packages -- Morpheus for example, IIRC.

GNU GPL-covered software and "commercial" software are not opposites. It can be okay to distribute GPL-covered software commercially.

All quoted spelling in context.

One thing that sems to be missing in all of this is that Apple is a public, for profit company, releasing code in to the public domain.

No, they are retaining copyright on their programs and releasing them under a non-free software license. Retaining copyright is what gives them the ability to leverage copyright power in the form of a license.

While im sure the GPL et al. are great, what apple does is give themselves some protection, and try to make it so that their code doesnt get forked and messy with no way "keep up" with it.

Code is not harmed by being copied or modified, therefore "protection" is an odd choice of word to use to describe what Apple is doing. Preventing forks is also not the point as the APSL does not prevent one from forking APSL-covered code.

What you describe in your hypothetical scenario is typically called "embrace and extend". In short, someone or some organization develops a purposefully-incompatible derivative of some non-copylefted Free Software. The programmers of the Free Software are now competing with what is largely their own work, playing catch-up for as long as the incompatible derivative is maintained. This cannot happen with APSL-covered code because APSL-covered code is non-free and Apple retains the ability to rescind your ability to legally modify or distribute APSL-covered works or derivatives of these works.

So you see, the protection built in stops companyA form "embrace, extend, break" and gives OTHERS using the standard sort of a guarentee that they wont be left out in the cold.

No, only copylefted Free Software gives the closest thing to that guarantee. Your rights under the APSL end if you dare to take action against Apple on patent infringement grounds (and note this is not just limited to software patents). Trading your software rights for leveraging your rights in society is unacceptable. This is one of the problems with the APSL that makes the APSL-covered programs non-free.

Copylefted Free Software makes sure the freedoms to share and modify the program don't leave the program. This is far better than any bugfix scenario can address. Copylefted Free Software grants us all the freedom to make the program suit our needs and lets us decide whether to keep our improvements private or share them. The freedoms of Free Software lead to the practical benefits often discussed. So when you focus on your freedom you are focusing on the root of the matter.

If i find a bug, i can be sure that my addition will work with the standard that everyone has.

Not necessarily. If you find a bug and tell Apple about it, they might not fix it. In which case the bug persists and everyone who uses that software has software with known bugs. Combine this with Apple's ability to pull the rug out from under you and you end up with software that doesn't even meet the freedom-ignoring practical benefit standard.

All quoted spelling in context.

One thing that sems to be missing in all of this is that Apple is a public, for profit company, releasing code in to the public domain.

No, they are retaining copyright on their programs and releasing them under a non-free software license. Retaining copyright is what gives them the ability to leverage copyright power in the form of a license.

While im sure the GPL et al. are great, what apple does is give themselves some protection, and try to make it so that their code doesnt get forked and messy with no way "keep up" with it.

Code is not harmed by being copied or modified, therefore "protection" is an odd choice of word to use to describe what Apple is doing. Preventing forks is also not the point as the APSL does not prevent one from forking APSL-covered code.

What you describe in your hypothetical scenario is typically called "embrace and extend". In short, someone or some organization develops a purposefully-incompatible derivative of some non-copylefted Free Software. The programmers of the Free Software are now competing with what is largely their own work, playing catch-up for as long as the incompatible derivative is maintained. This cannot happen with APSL-covered code because APSL-covered code is non-free and Apple retains the ability to rescind your ability to legally modify or distribute APSL-covered works or derivatives of these works.

So you see, the protection built in stops companyA form "embrace, extend, break" and gives OTHERS using the standard sort of a guarentee that they wont be left out in the cold.

No, only copylefted Free Software gives the closest thing to that guarantee. Your rights under the APSL end if you dare to take action against Apple on patent infringement grounds (and note this is not just limited to software patents). Trading your software rights for leveraging your rights in society is unacceptable. This is one of the problems with the APSL that makes the APSL-covered programs non-free.

Copylefted Free Software makes sure the freedoms to share and modify the program don't leave the program. This is far better than any bugfix scenario can address. Copylefted Free Software grants us all the freedom to make the program suit our needs and lets us decide whether to keep our improvements private or share them. The freedoms of Free Software lead to the practical benefits often discussed. So when you focus on your freedom you are focusing on the root of the matter.

If i find a bug, i can be sure that my addition will work with the standard that everyone has.

Not necessarily. If you find a bug and tell Apple about it, they might not fix it. In which case the bug persists and everyone who uses that software has software with known bugs. Combine this with Apple's ability to pull the rug out from under you and you end up with software that doesn't even meet the freedom-ignoring practical benefit standard.

Does rapid improvement in processor technology cancel out the need for developers to learn how to write better code on a particular platform in order to achieve the maximum possible benefit from Information Technology?

No, that's

1. the advances in compiler technology
2. the divergence in architectures with a common instruction set.

It's no longer practical to hand-code assembler for speed: chances are your C compiler will do it much better than you can and in a fraction of time, too. Nowadays if you get the basic algorithms right your compiler should do all the rest. (And if it doesn't, go contribute to gcc until that does.)

It's here in the Google cache. Bero's server seems to be somewhat swamped at the moment. ;)

In addition, GCC's take on the matter is here, and associated Slashdot discussion here. Search Google and/or Slashdot for "GCC", "Redhat" and "Bero" for a *lot* more, but it's a bit of a flamefest in places.

gah. here I crafted what I thought was a clever post, but I forgot to fill in the link in the second to last line.

"the path to madness" bit should point here

Note to self: never ever post when sleep deprived.

The kernel is only a part of the GNU operating system, as it is with any OS. GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux are both flavours of the GNU operating system. Nothing you quoted said otherwise.

Having said that, I note that Stallman has stopped referring to "GNU/Hurd", and now simply calls it "GNU" (though you can still find instances of "GNU/Hurd" lying around). In fact, if you wanted to make your point originally, you could have quoted this:

Since Linux is a secondary contribution, would it be false to the facts to call the system simply "GNU"?

It would not be false to the facts, but it is not the best thing to do. Here are the reasons we call that system version "GNU/Linux" rather than just "GNU":

• It's not exactly GNU--it has a different kernel (that is, Linux). Distinguishing GNU/Linux from GNU is useful.
• ...

Regardless, I still call it "Linux" because "GNU" sounds dumb, and because even RMS doesn't seem to be able to describe exactly what it is.

Not for the current Apple license I don't think.

GPL incompatability is based on the single requirement that people who "deploy" modified code in an organization must release that code. The GPL allows one to refrain from releasing the source code until you release the modified program. Of course the GPL is pretty vauge on what it means to release the modified program.

This is explained at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html.

It is arguably an open source license. Nevertheless, there are practical problems with it; RMS's commentary is based on things that anybody using APSL should take a close look at.

Anyone who's rational recognizes the great service Apple has done and continues to do for the open source community.

Oh, get a clue. Apple is a company, not a charity or a benevolent benefactor. They have realized that some open source efforts are good for their business. You don't owe them anything and they don't owe you or me anything. Apple is being rational, and so should anybody using their products.

socialist radicals

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

Commercial software, evil? Why, RMS loves commercial software! He even says so himself.

From gnome users FAQ

Q: GNOME: "nome" or "guh-nome"?

A: In English, the word "gnome" is pronounced with a silent "g". However, GNOME itself is generally pronounced as "guh-nome", just as GNU is pronounced "guh-noo" when referring to the GNU Project.

You obviously did not read the GNU FAQ on this very subject.

As I understand it, it is GNU if the FSF controls the copyright. There are advantages. The GPL guarantees that the code is always yours (and everyone else's) to do with as you (they) please, but the Free Software Foundation owning the copyright means they will defend GPL violations and you don't have to. (I'm not speaking for GNU/FSF here, and I don't know that they have ever done this, so take a very large grain of salt here). A quick check of their web site shows a good place to start researching to be http://www.gnu.org/software/devel.html. That's there start page for people who want to develop GNU. Links from there should explain their position (and possibly contradict everything I've said, but they're GNU and I am not, so listen to them, not me).

Non-free software is an example of that amoral approach and thrives on it. (faq)

Good luck

By that definition, what has GNU/FSF contributed? Let's see. glibc is the big one, that's what enables them to say "oh, we're the biggest contributor." Won't get very far without the C library, yes. And... Bash. Other than that, I found nothing in the list of GNU software that is required to have a functional Linux system.

They have a valid point, but blathering on about how they wrote a chess program does not in any way make them look like major contributors to an OS. :)

This silliness all makes me glad that I'm running OS X... oh, wait, *that's* got GCC too. Sheesh. I wonder how long it is before someone wants me to call it "GNU/MacOS X!"

RMS seems to be concerned that Linus is doing something like what the GPL was designed to prevent. GNU/Linux essentially took the entire work of the GNU project and espoused it to a project with differing ideals and philosophy. That's the heart of his problems with it - this name battle is an expression of that conflict which has erupted before in the name battle over FS/OS.

I am not advocating either side in this issue. I agree with ideals from both camps.

This one. Read The Fucking Article.

vi is an editor... not an operating system component. ls, cp, rm, mv are all small command-line utilities that have very small functional uses. They are also not used by any graphical UIs that perform the same function. If you remove ls from the system, does the OS crash? vi? mv? They're utilities, not OS components.

" 1. These unexciting but essential components include the GNU assembler, GAS and the linker, GLD, both are now part of the GNU Binutils package, GNU tar, and more."
Where exactly did you get that quote? I did a search through the entire page but haven't found even one line that contains the word "unexciting".

here
It's their "See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for more explanation" link...

You don't get it. They are NOT forcing Linus to change the name "Linux"! They are expressing their opinion about it, yet people mod them down just because they disagree. You don't have to agree with the FSF but you don't have to mod them down either.

I'm not modding anyone down, I just think this horse is dead and its bones have been pulverized... stop beating it.

T

Still, my basic point is: MacOS X isn't based mainly on the GNU operating system tools, so GNU/MacOS X is inappropriate.

I guess the horse now is really dead, btw...

That should be a link. I really did preview as well. Honestely!

X11 is short for X protocol, version 11. That's defined by the X consortium. What most people use is XFree86, developed by the XFree86 Project.

And by the way RMS, add in the code base of XFree86 and KDE, and you've got much, much more code already than all of the GNU stuff that gets installed in a typical distribution, even considering gcc.

Don't agree? Fancy a giggle? Then read this question's answer. I found it most entertaining, whilst ensuring they get zero credibility.

"The people who focus on the more superficial goals have a right to their views, but don't let them drag you along! "
thanks, i'll do just that.

The OpenSSL license contains the obnoxious advertising clause, which makes it incompatible with the GPL. That's why GNU TLS is needed.

Any word on when this will be 'production worthy'?

No, the first I heard of it was as I was poking around a Red Hat ftp archive looking for some RPMs for chasing a bug reported by a RH user (turns out he was using an old version of my package, but I digress...) and I noticed the prelink package sitting there somewhere. It sounded a lot like the IRIX thing - and I've thought off and on over the years that it would be nice for Linux to have that - so I read the README.

Gooogle for "jakub jelinek prelink" - it'll tell you a lot more than I can.

Also, do you know of a website that has any performance numbers or other details?

Thanks to Google we have his original announcement, where he claims to have reduced the startup overhead in Konqueror (before opening its first X window) from 0.510 seconds to 0.011 seconds. Of course this is a best-case scenario, as prelinking will be the most noticeable for big binaries with lots of shared library dependencies.

Despite fact OpenSSL is so widely used, there exist a project to make GPLed replacement for it - GNU Transport Layer Security Library.

It is useful for all those people, for whom BSD license is not enough free. I think that TLS (the new name for SSL, BTW) library is mandatory for GNU/Operating System. And because of GNU it has to be GPLed - now it means reimplemented from scratch.
I also fear, that it will be binary incompatible with OpenSSL - if so, it wouldn't gain popularity. It should be drop-in replacement.

But we will see - right now you can test it or go and help developing this crypto library.

I suspect it's to suggest a trademark.

Psh... that's as lame as the 1-click patent. Sadly though, you are probably right.

No, it isn't.

On the other hand consider for example this biography or what the wikipedia has to say. 1996 seems to be the answer.

It has already been done, at least for Emacs. Have a look at the OO-Browser and JDEE, plus all that comes with GNU Emacs like:

• Version Control
• compiling and debugging
• abbreviations/completion
• ...and a dozen or so of language-specific programming modes (with syntax highlinghting, auto-indentation, etc.).

Plus, creating your own elisp code to do whatever you want (not just silly keyboard macros) is quite simple, and there are already tons of useful snippets and code examples out there. This can hardly be said for other editors, except for Vim and JEdit (which I personally consider on par with Emacs, except it requires more resources to run).

I can't speak for Vim, since I use it just occasionally, but I'm confident that it provides equivalent functionalities.

It has already been done, at least for Emacs. Have a look at the OO-Browser and JDEE, plus all that comes with GNU Emacs like:

• Version Control
• compiling and debugging
• abbreviations/completion
• ...and a dozen or so of language-specific programming modes (with syntax highlinghting, auto-indentation, etc.).

Plus, creating your own elisp code to do whatever you want (not just silly keyboard macros) is quite simple, and there are already tons of useful snippets and code examples out there. This can hardly be said for other editors, except for Vim and JEdit (which I personally consider on par with Emacs, except it requires more resources to run).

I can't speak for Vim, since I use it just occasionally, but I'm confident that it provides equivalent functionalities.

It has already been done, at least for Emacs. Have a look at the OO-Browser and JDEE, plus all that comes with GNU Emacs like:

• Version Control
• compiling and debugging
• abbreviations/completion
• ...and a dozen or so of language-specific programming modes (with syntax highlinghting, auto-indentation, etc.).

Plus, creating your own elisp code to do whatever you want (not just silly keyboard macros) is quite simple, and there are already tons of useful snippets and code examples out there. This can hardly be said for other editors, except for Vim and JEdit (which I personally consider on par with Emacs, except it requires more resources to run).

I can't speak for Vim, since I use it just occasionally, but I'm confident that it provides equivalent functionalities.