Re: GnuTLS for W32

[joakim]

Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:21:14 +0200 Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote: 
>
> EZ> No, it is _not_ hard for the user to put the DLL in the correct
> EZ> directory.  It is hard for _us_, the programmers of package.el, to
> EZ> select a fixed directory that would work for all users, so that we
> EZ> could hardcode its absolute file name in the Emacs sources.  An
> EZ> entirely different issue.
>
> The addendum is "...and so GnuTLS is available to non-Emacs processes
> too" which is something I did not consider carefully but your mention of
> wget brought up.  We don't want multiple versions of the GnuTLS DLL all
> over the place, that could be worse for security than a single outdated
> version.  So the package.el install is not a good W32 solution to
> deliver GnuTLS, after all.
>
> On Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:51:28 +0100 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> 
> wrote: 
>
> LMI> And since the (major) binary GNU/Linux distributions will be providing
> LMI> the gnutls libraries with Emacs, then we should, too?  :-)
>
> We should find a way, yes.  But we should be smart about it, and a
> GnuTLS installer, separate from Emacs, would benefit far more users and
> projects, and it would use the right APIs to deploy the DLL.
>
> On Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:10:14 +0100 Óscar Fuentes <address@hidden> wrote: 
>
> ÓF> The standard MS installers have a mechanism for detecting when a dll is
> ÓF> in use and, if the result is positive, arrange things for updating it on
> ÓF> the next restart or login. A poor's man method for detecting when a dll
> ÓF> is in use is just trying to overwrite it (after you know that you have
> ÓF> write access to the file).
>
> Because of this, I think we (emacs-devel and gnutls-devel) should just
> put together a W32 installer for GnuTLS.  Obviously this would be
> connected to the GnuTLS project but I think Nikos (whose name I've
> misspelled as Nicos a few times) could use some help with such an
> installer.  Is there another GNU project that provides a W32 DLL
> *self-updating* installer, so I can get them started with that project?
>
> I may end up owning that installer, we'll see what the GnuTLS developers
> want.  But it would let GnuTLS issue updates, remove a release
> dependency between their project and Emacs, and remove the tedious
> requirement of downloading a zip file and installing it manually.
>
> On the Emacs side on W32, if GnuTLS is not installed, we should tell the
> user how to install it by pointing to the W32 installer (running it
> automatically is probably too aggressive).  The more I think about it,
> the more appropriate this solution seems for everyone concerned.

I haven't followed this thread too closely but I can offer advice on how
to use the NSIS installer (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page) if
that is at all relevant (NSIS is free software and stuff)


>
> Ted
>

-- 
Joakim Verona