Re: movemail on Debian

Re: movemail on Debian

[Richard Stallman]

	    * configure.in: When we have -llockfile, define HAVE_LIBMAIL, not
	    LIBMAIL.

Can you explain the meaning of defining LIBMAIL, and the meaning of
defining HAVE_LIBMAIL, so I can understand this change?

Does HAVE_LIBMAIL have any existing meaning, distinct from its effect
on the conditional you are adding to gnu-linux.h?

Re: movemail on Debian

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> 	    * configure.in: When we have -llockfile, define HAVE_LIBMAIL, not
> 	    LIBMAIL.
> 
> Can you explain the meaning of defining LIBMAIL,

I think there wasn't any.  [I was fairly sure the configurey worked at
one stage, but that was perhaps a couple of years back and it seems
the current version doesn't DTRT despite what the Debian patch says.]

> and the meaning of defining HAVE_LIBMAIL, so I can understand this
> change?

It's normal autoconf for `can link -lmail'.

> Does HAVE_LIBMAIL have any existing meaning, distinct from its effect
> on the conditional you are adding to gnu-linux.h?

I think movemail is written to work with function `maillock' (?) from
a proprietary libmail.  Debian has the same function in liblockfile.
Defining HAVE_LIBMAIL (albeit a lie) gets movemail to use maillock --
as I commented in gnu-linux.h -- without touching movemail.c.  See
conditionals on HAVE_LIBMAIL &c near the top of movemail.c.

Is that clear?

Re: movemail on Debian

[Richard Stallman]

    I think movemail is written to work with function `maillock' (?) from
    a proprietary libmail.  Debian has the same function in liblockfile.
    Defining HAVE_LIBMAIL (albeit a lie) gets movemail to use maillock --
    as I commented in gnu-linux.h -- without touching movemail.c.  See
    conditionals on HAVE_LIBMAIL &c near the top of movemail.c.

    Is that clear?

Yes, it is clear now.  Would you please install your changes
in the trunk and in RC?

Re: movemail on Debian

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Yes, it is clear now.

[I hope someone can actually check the implementation.]

> Would you please install your changes in the trunk and in RC?

I don't think it should be installed as such on the trunk.  It should
be cleaned up with separate definitions for libmail and liblockfile
with appropriate changes to movemail.  (That's probably trivial, but
I'm not sure.)

Re: movemail on Debian

[Richard Stallman]

    > Would you please install your changes in the trunk and in RC?

    I don't think it should be installed as such on the trunk.

Should it be installed as such in RC?  If so, please do.

								It should
    be cleaned up with separate definitions for libmail and liblockfile
    with appropriate changes to movemail.

Would you like to write what should be installed in the trunk?

Re: movemail on Debian

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Should it be installed as such in RC?  If so, please do.

I already did.

> 								It should
>     be cleaned up with separate definitions for libmail and liblockfile
>     with appropriate changes to movemail.
> 
> Would you like to write what should be installed in the trunk?

I'd rather leave it to the movemail maintainer or someone else.  [It
still needs re-writing so the locking mechanism is selectable at
runtime, as discussed some time ago, which is the reason I don't use
it.]

Re: movemail on Debian

[Richard Stallman]

    > Would you like to write what should be installed in the trunk?

    I'd rather leave it to the movemail maintainer or someone else.  [It
    still needs re-writing so the locking mechanism is selectable at
    runtime, as discussed some time ago, which is the reason I don't use
    it.]

I don't know if anyone else will do it.  A run-time decision is the
right thing, but your change would be better than nothing.  So could
you adapt it to the trunk and install it, please?

Someone else can always improve it later, if we find someone to do it.

Re: movemail on Debian

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     I'd rather leave it to the movemail maintainer or someone else.  [It
>     still needs re-writing so the locking mechanism is selectable at
>     runtime, as discussed some time ago, which is the reason I don't use
>     it.]
>
> I don't know if anyone else will do it.  A run-time decision is the
> right thing, but your change would be better than nothing.  So could
> you adapt it to the trunk and install it, please?

I've done this, with a heavy heart, but I still don't know for sure
it's right.

> Someone else can always improve it later, if we find someone to do it.

Why isn't movemail maintained with, or integrated into, mailutils?  It
would presumably be a trivial job to assemble it from mailutils
components, and then would get things like APOP support automatically
(currently missing and what I need to fetch mail from GNU, for
instance).

Re: movemail on Debian

[Richard Stallman]

    Why isn't movemail maintained with, or integrated into, mailutils?

I am not sure what that would mean.  Could you explain?

      It
    would presumably be a trivial job to assemble it from mailutils
    components,

I understand that even less.

Re: movemail on Debian

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Why isn't movemail maintained with, or integrated into, mailutils?
>
> I am not sure what that would mean.  Could you explain?

I'm not sure what needs explaining.  I'd hope it meant that movemail
got expert maintenance from someone else with important features like
IMAP (see etc/TODO) and APOP.  Mailutils already has specific support
for Emacs since its `mh' component is already advertised primarily to
support mh-e, so I guess it would be open to providing movemail.  I
guess you'd end up with substantially more source for the program in
Emacs, and you'd have to sync it, but that seems worthwhile.

>       It
>     would presumably be a trivial job to assemble it from mailutils
>     components,
>
> I understand that even less.

The job that movemail does is basically a subset of what `mail' has to
do to extract messages to your mbox, so adding a movemail program to
mailutils should be easy.