Re: --with-gtk as default?

[David Kastrup]

Jason Rumney <address@hidden> writes:

> David Kastrup wrote:
>> So how would this strategy be?  If no toolkit is specified and GTK+ is
>> available, use GTK+ if it does not crash on display close.
>>   
>
> These, and the changes necessary to avoid using GTK on Cygwin by
> default, are significant changes to the configure step, so they
> really need to wait until after release.

Granted.  In return, let me ask you to stand aside while I holler in
frustration.

> I don't see any safe way to make GTK the default for this
> release. Maybe we should write to the maintainers of Emacs packages
> for the major GNU/Linux distributions and request that they make GTK
> the default downstream. Although the figures we've seen show that
> emacs-snapshot-gtk is already more popular than emacs-snapshot,
> users of both of those are already going out of their way to
> investigate and decide which package is best.

A small majority of those users who are audacious enough to install a
snapshot from unstable (well, or from Ubuntu universe).

I don't see why the packaging scheme (emacs-snapshot vs
emacs-snapshot-nox vs emacs-snapshot-gtk) should magically change once
emacs-snapshot-* becomes emacs22-*.  And once we have emacs22, the
ratio of "audacious and educated" vs "installs what seems easiest"
will sharply decline, and the latter class will be the one making
screen shots and reviews.

> Most users do not have that motivation, and will still be using the
> "emacs" package, and it is those users we want to get the best out
> of the box experience.

The only thing which we might have some tiny chance of success with is
asking to _not_ offer any emacs22 package at all, but merely
emacs22-xaw, emacs22-gtk, emacs22-nox.

And chances for that are slim if our own defaults prefer Xaw.

> People who build from source are probably in the bleeding-edge
> category, and will find out about --with-gtk on their own, so I
> don't think we need to worry so much about them

Some people who build from source are in the sysadmin/distribution
maintainer category, and won't mess with special configure options
that upstream obviously did not feel good about.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum