Re: recent change to yanking behavior of the clipboard

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> On X, every program is supposed to follow this:
>
>   https://specifications.freedesktop.org/clipboards-spec/clipboards-spec.txt
>
> In short:

Some of those specs talk about interaction with other programs, in which
case we should arguably follow them to be good neighbors.  But other
parts talk about the UI and only affect the contract between the
application and the user.  We have no obligation to follow those parts,
tho of course it might make a lot of sense to make the default behavior
follow those specs to avoid surprising the user.

The change under discussion here was motivated by an optimization, so
presumably it should not affect the interface between the user and
Emacs, but only between Emacs and the system.  So IIUC this is a part
where the spec is indeed very relevant and we should strive to
follow it.  But I must say I don't know which part of the spec the
change is related to.  Could you clarify?

> Setting `select-enable-clipboard' to nil violates 3, 4, and 5, while
> setting `select-enable-primary' to t violates 5 and 4.

These seem to only affect the contract between the user and Emacs, so if
the users change them to their default, that can only hurt themselves.

And AFAICT our default settings don't violate those parts 3, 4, and 5,
so we're fine.

And of course I still can't see in which way this relates to
commit 99c637499e.


        Stefan