From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: pgg-encrypt is a pain in the neck Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:47:05 -0500 Message-ID: References: <8f26a84d-356a-44f1-ac6a-54792380b76d@well-done.deisui.org> <93fed91b-cb8a-4de7-9a16-62c85654bab6@well-done.deisui.org> <6662a3b9-1148-4aa0-bd2d-29a67be38d76@well-done.deisui.org> <5a520e06-4ee3-4c4f-9345-d49a666516f9@well-done.deisui.org> <7f60c21d-2f66-4c4b-9abb-e377ca24a153@well-done.deisui.org> <844cd50a-ec18-4b09-a057-35bdfb5173fd@well-done.deisui.org> <8ba25607-9381-4a27-ae53-8b0f3ccc3ac1@well-done.deisui.org> <366fa6ab-42a0-4df5-a17f-4ac3d1744d78@well-done.deisui.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1167529889 22549 80.91.229.12 (31 Dec 2006 01:51:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:51:29 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ueno@unixuser.org, peterb@kenny.sha-bang.de, reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 31 02:51:28 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1H0prB-00080P-Tz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 31 Dec 2006 02:51:26 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1H0prB-0007zI-D7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:51:25 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1H0pnO-0005VZ-QG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:47:30 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1H0pnN-0005UZ-RV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:47:30 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1H0pnN-0005UM-Jq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:47:29 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1H0pnN-0000cP-Ac for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:47:29 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1H0pmz-0005Is-5V; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:47:05 -0500 Original-To: Sascha Wilde In-reply-to: (message from Sascha Wilde on Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:41:21 +0100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:64548 Archived-At: PGG is rather "low level" in context of mail encryption, but please bear in mind, that there are other uses for GnuPG: You can encrypt other private or confidential stuff just to keep it safe without sending it per mail, and that's where the currently available user functions come in handy. I agree, that a more generic solution might be worthwhile, but I don't think that pgg is "broke" or needs to be "fixed" in this regard. There seems to be a disagreement about this. Daiki Ueno told me that PGG could do what Mailcrypt does; I found it cannot, and you say it isn't supposed to. Your viewpoint seems to be that PGG is actually meant only for use from other Lisp programs. If so, I don't think it really needs to be documented on its own. If PGG is currently only useful via Gnus, then I think the documentation of gpg-agent is only needed in the Gnus manual, since it is only relevant for Gnus. Could someone please install the text that Daiki Ueno wrote into the Gnus manual? Meanwhile, it is unfortunate that Emacs has most of what is needed to do the job of Mailcrypt but fails to actually deliver that functionality to the user. I hope people will implement this, soon after the release. Btw. I think one source of this problem is that we currently have two (or more?) mail composition modes in Emacs: message mode coming from gnus and mail mode. I have always been unhappy with the Gnus developers for writing another mail composition mode without discussing with me whether we should have another.