3.8 What informational files are available for Emacs?

This isn’t a frequently asked question, but it should be! A variety of informational files about Emacs and relevant aspects of the GNU project are available for you to read.

The following files (and others) are available in the etc directory of the Emacs distribution (see What are src/config.h, site-lisp/default.el, etc.?, if you’re not sure where that is). Many of these files are available via the Emacs ‘Help’ menu, or by typing C-h ? (M-x help-for-help).

COPYING

GNU General Public License

DISTRIB

Emacs Availability Information

MACHINES

Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems

NEWS

Emacs news, a history of recent user-visible changes

More GNU and FSF information is available at

https://www.gnu.org and https://www.fsf.org