mg (editor)

The mg editor in OpenBSD 5.3. Editing Ruby source code

mg, originally called MicroGnuEmacs (and later changed at the request of Richard Stallman^[1]), is a public-domain text editor that runs on Unix-like operating systems. It is based on MicroEMACS, but intended to more closely resemble GNU Emacs while still maintaining a small memory footprint and fast speed. An expanded version of the original is included as part of OpenBSD, where it is maintained, and snapshots of the OpenBSD version are available in the native package management trees of many other systems, including MacPorts, FreeBSD Ports, pkgsrc and Debian.

History

• Nov 16, 1986: First release to mod.sources, according to the README
• Mar 3, 1987: First release (mg1a) via comp.sources.unix
• May 26, 1988: Second release: (mg2a) via comp.sources.misc
• Jan 26, 1992: Linux port released by Charles Hedrick. This version later makes its way onto tsx-11, Infomagic, and various other Linux repositories.
• Feb 25, 2000: First import into the OpenBSD tree, where it is currently maintained
• May 20, 2001: OpenBSD's mg is imported into FreeBSD Ports^[2]

See also

• List of text editors
• Comparison of text editors

References

1. mg README file
2. initial Makefile in FreeBSD

External links

• OpenBSD's mg man page.
• Han Boetes' portable version of OpenBSD's mg.
• Browsable source code of mg at BXR.SU OpenGrok