From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Release plans Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:18:02 +0000 Message-ID: <20080818101802.GA2615@muc.de> References: <873al79akr.fsf@skyscraper.fehenstaub.lan> <48A5BAD7.8030302@emf.net> <48A740CB.4050404@emf.net> <20080816213508.GA8530@muc.de> <87hc9ka8eg.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <20080817073124.GA1294@muc.de> <87ljyv5gy5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1219055072 14281 80.91.229.12 (18 Aug 2008 10:24:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:24:32 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, hannes@saeurebad.de, rms@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 18 12:25:24 2008 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 1KV1vP-000828-TQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:25:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:50514 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KV1uR-0002sI-PS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:24:23 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KV1lw-0000pE-Ms for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:15:36 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KV1lu-0000oR-6m for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:15:35 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=48648 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KV1ls-0000oH-Ew for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:15:32 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:1343 helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KV1lr-00057G-UI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:15:32 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 30451 invoked by uid 3782); 18 Aug 2008 10:15:28 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (pD9E51F5B.dip.t-dialin.net [217.229.31.91]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:15:25 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 3431 invoked by uid 1000); 18 Aug 2008 10:18:02 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87ljyv5gy5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 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:102588 Archived-At: Morning, Stephen! On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 09:01:54AM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: > Alan Mackenzie writes: > > I wasn't talking about a scientific process for which evidence can > > be weighed up. > Shouldn't you be? Surely you know it is possible to quantify risk, > and analyze it scientifically? OK, but it is like the blowing up of a nuclear reactor, not a plane crash. You don't say "hey, no reactors of type XYZ have blown up, therefore it's safe"; instead, you analyse the way it's made and run, and probe for potential chains of failures. With a plane crash, on the other hand, you can say "a plane of type UVW only crashes every 100,000,000 flight hours, so you'll be OK.". > Why do you ask that we on your nightmares, or Richard's, to guide > policy? I don't ask anyone to we on my nightmares. ;-) I think you missed a word out. [ .... ] > Are you beginning to see how untenable your position is? No. It may well be that, after more rigorous analysis, loadable binaries in Emacs might not be a problem. But being wrong is a long way from being untenable. > In fact the only thing it has going for it is > > Richard is a master of nasty deviousness, so the fact that he sees a > > problem is reason in itself to take it seriously. ;-) > but that's genuinely ad hominem. Yes, but it's not an a.h. attack. It's an a.h. compliment. > > The essential point is that if an un-free Emacs became established > > through the mechanism of loading binary libraries, we could not > > easily reverse it. > Huh? All you have to do is write the patch and announce a release. > Richard has done that before (the security patch a couple years ago). "Huh?"? Such a patch would do nothing to disestablish an established un-free version. > A couple of corrections: > > I think you said recently that there's an obscure patch around > > which > The patch is to Emacs, and it's obscure only because it has been > refused inclusion in Emacs with extreme firmness, so that its > proponents gave up about five years ago. In XEmacs 21.4 and later, > it's as simple as ./configure --with-modules. .... > > That's very different from something being a core feature, > > encouraged by the prime maintainers. > Well, in XEmacs, the module loader *is* a core feature encouraged by > the maintainers. It's not configured by default because demand is so > far low. Those two sentences seem to contradict eachother. I can't find any documentation for it in either of the manuals (XEmacs 21.4.17) or NEWS. I even know it exists, and I've even got a solid search term ("loader"), but I still can't find it. That's hardly encouragement. How much use has been made of this module loader in XEmacs? What's it been used for? > In SXEmacs, FFI is configured by many users because packages > are downloaded not by EFS as in XEmacs, but via a FFI interface to > libcurl implemented entire in Lisp. I've just had a look at the SXEmacs home page, having not previously been aware of it. I can't really see any reason for SXEmacs's existence. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).