Re: Source and compiling instructions for old version of Emacs (< 19.x)

[Richard Stallman]

    I'm working on some research projects on the history of text editor 
    technologies and more generally the early days of the free software 
    movement.  As part of that research I would like to compile, on a 
    contemporary Linux distribution, 

Linux is a kernel.  Linux alone is not a sufficient platform to run
any version of GNU Emacs.  You probably mean a GNU/Linux distribution,
which consists of the GNU system and Linux together.

Please don't call the GNU system "Linux" -- it is unfair to us
and it is harmful to our work.

See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html for more explanation
of this, and http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html for the
historical background.

Someone, FSF staff I think, found a copy of Emacs 16 for me a few
months ago.  If you promise never to call the whole system "Linux", I
will ask them to dig it up for you.