Re: Emacs binaries for Windows

[Arash Esbati <arash.esbati@gmail.com>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Arash Esbati <arash.esbati@gmail.com>
>> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 18:33:06 +0200
>> 
>> Thanks for your response.  I try to give an example: Currently, Msys2
>> delivers a package named
>> 
>>     mingw-w64-x86_64-expat-2.1.1-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
>> 
>> containing `libexpat-1.dll'.  If you clon the repository from
>> 
>>     https://github.com/Alexpux/MINGW-packages.git
>> 
>> and cd to `./MINGW-packages/mingw-w64-expat', the command
>> 
>>     makepkg-mingw --allsource -sLf
>> 
>> downloads the original sources from
>> 
>>     https://downloads.sourceforge.net/expat/expat-2.1.1.tar.bz2
>> 
>> and makes an archive
>> 
>>     mingw-w64-expat-2.1.1-1.src.tar.gz
>> 
>> containing the archive from sourceforge and a Msys2 specific patch
>> called `001-fix-extension.patch' (plus PKGBUILD & .SRCINFO files).
>> 
>> My first question is: With the provision made above, can the file
>> `libexpat-1.dll' be distributed along with an Emacs binary, which is
>> also built against this DLL file? (I will come back with a second
>> question later).
>
> IIUC, no.  The sources are really on another server, so they could
> remove them, and your script will simply fail.  The GPL requires that
> the binaries and the sources be either both available or both absent.
>
> Once again, the only practical way of complying with GPL is to provide
> the source archive from the same server as the binaries.  (The GPL
> doesn't request that literally, but I know of no other scheme that
> really works.)

I see your point, and I'm seeking for a way to store library sources
next to Emacs binaries on the same server.  I think we already have a
solution: the library sources can be packaged the way I have described;
if Phil agrees to go this route as well, he could package the sources
and upload them with the next RC which can be distributed with the
necessary DLLs.

Best, Arash