Re: A plea for dynamically loadable extension modules

[Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org>]

In article <871xw8i3tr.fsf@tapsellferrier.co.uk>, Nic <nferrier@tapsellferrier.co.uk> writes:

> Mario Lang <mlang@delysid.org> writes:
>>  Is there any chance that we get the dynloading extention 
>>  for 21.4?  If not, could you please explain why? 

> I think rms made a statement on this subject a number of months
> ago. The reason dynamic loading has not been included in emacs so far
> is that there would then be the potential of breaking the terms of
> the licence under which emacs is distributed.

> The GPL requires all code linked to emacs to also be Free. If
> dynamic linking was allowed that couldn't be gauranteed.

Just a note:

The latest X allows dynamic loading various objects for
XLC/XOM/XIM support.

For instance, see this file
    <http://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.6/xc/nls/XI18N_OBJS/en_US.UTF-8>

The content is:
# CATEGORY(XLC|XIM|OM)	SHARED_LIBRARY_NAME	FUNCTION_NAME
#
#	XI18N objects table for euro locales
#
XLC	common/xlcUTF-8		_XlcUnicodeLoader	# XLC_open
XOM	common/xomLTRTTB	_XomGenericOpenOM	# XOM_open
XIM	common/xiiimp		_SwitchOpenIM		# XIM_open
XIM	common/xiiimp		_XimpLocalOpenIM	# XIM_open

It is possible that any commercial programs come here.

So, as far as Emacs is linked with X (by regarding X library
as something fundamental one as libc), it's impossible to
guarantee the above condition.

---
Ken'ichi HANDA
handa@m17n.org