Stallman Quits Emacs Maintainer Job
After 32 years as the maintainer of the Emacs editor, Richard M. Stallman, has assigned the task to two younger developers.
Last Friday Stallman announced on the Emacs mailing list that he would be handing over to two younger developers, Stefan Monnier and Chong Yidong. His announcement was short and to the point: "Stefan and Yidong offered to take over, so I am willing to hand over Emacs development to them." It is not currently known when the hand over will take place.
The new maintainers are both experienced Emacs developers. Stefan Monnier is an assistant professor at the Unversity of Montreal. Chong Yidong is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate. During her time at MIT she worked on the theoretical physics of compressed material.
In another posting on the mailing list Richard Stallman writes that this would not be the first change. Joe Arceneaux, Jim Blandy and Gerd Moellmann are all former Emacs maintainers so this is the fourth time that somebody apart from Stallman has had the job.
In an interview concerning the change Stallman states that he is just to busy to devote the time Emacs deserves to its development. He has been thinking of quitting his maintainer job for over a year.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TUXEDO Unveils New InfinityBook Pro with an AMD Ryzen AI 300
This new notebook offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Is This the Year of Linux?
Another major organization has decided to kick Windows and Office to the curb, in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.