Re: pre-test windows binaries

[phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)]

Lode Leroy <lode.leroy@gmail.com> writes:

> I installed this version:
> http://www.russet.org.uk/scratch/emacs-25.0.92-x86_64-w64-mingw32.zip
> and when clicking the "Emacs Guided Tour" in the "About GNU Emacs"
> text, I get this error:
>     Contacting host: www.gnu.org:80
>     libxml2 library not found
>
> could libxml2.dll be added to the zip archive?


It could be, but the reason for not doing this is that I then have to
distribute the source for libxml2.dll. And, of course, any dependencies.
And, if libxml2, why not gnutls, libjpeg and all the others (again, with
all their source). I think it is mainly for this reason that the dlls
haven't been distributed previously with the exception of libXpm --
although Emacs can even function without this.

The only solution I know of is that, you can unpack my binaries on top
of a msys2 installation and all should work.

I find this not an ideal solution at the moment, as it makes Emacs
installation painful. I do have a better potential solution in mind:
which is to write an ELPA package which pulls all the relevant DLLs
straight down from the msys repositories. This way, we don't have to
distribute any DLLs at all, so source distribution isn't needed.

Phil