Re: GnuTLS for W32

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 03:00, Óscar Fuentes <address@hidden> wrote:

> It *also* means that depending on unknown third parties is asking for
> trouble.

Yes. Unknown.

> AFAIK Windows binaries are distributed from the GNU servers just because
> someone volunteers to do the job, not because it is a requisite for the
> release.

The binary tarballs for Windows are more or less "blessed". They are
not a requisite for the release, because strictly speaking, nothing
Windows-related is a requisite for the release (I suppose an exception
would be fixing bugs related to data loss or security issues).

> So it should be up to those volunteers to decide if they want
> to include those libraries (GnuTLS, image support, etc) on the binary
> package.

The moment the packages are accesible from the official site, there's
certain responsibilities. For example, to issue security upgrades as
fast as possible.

> A slightly different issue is to decide if changes to Emacs sources are
> allowed to do that chore on certain way, but then it is up to the
> volunteers again and solid reasons should be given to reject those
> contributions.

So far, none of the ways that had been proposed has been convincing,
and solid reasons have been given against them. It's just that we are
not agreeing on what "solid reasons" mean. As far as I'm concerned,
using ELPA to distribute Windows DLLs is gross beyond description, for
example. Any mechanism that makes Emacs try to auto-upgrade itself is
also a no-no (in my view, I don't know Stefan and Chong's opinion).

> IIRC Lennart also distributes an unpatched Emacs.

Yes, though I think he doesn't update it very often (I haven't checked
recently and I could be wrong).

> Ah, yes, the Emacs w32 people. Now I understand your stance better (and
> maybe Eli's). I think it would be unfair and unreasonable to make you
> responsible of doing the job related to those libraries, but I also
> think that you are not obliged in any way to provide binaries of
> anything.

Responsibility and obligation are disjoint concepts. I don't mind the
load, but I hate accepting (not personally, but as a project) the
responsibility to do things, like compiling GnuTLS binaries and
distributing them, that are utterly disconnected from Emacs
development per se. The moment we do that, people will expect we also
provide up-to-date binaries for image libs, libxml2, d-bus, you name
it.

    Juanma