From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Release plans Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:01:54 +0900 Message-ID: <87ljyv5gy5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <20080814083817.GA2593@muc.de> <877iak7xfp.fsf@skyscraper.fehenstaub.lan> <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> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1219017734 30026 80.91.229.12 (18 Aug 2008 00:02:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:02:14 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Thomas Lord , emacs-devel@gnu.org, hannes@saeurebad.de, rms@gnu.org, ams@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 18 02:03:05 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 1KUsDB-0001Xw-87 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:03:05 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:56673 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KUsCE-0001ad-3K for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:02:06 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KUsCA-0001YT-AJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:02:02 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KUsC8-0001X6-Ln for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:02:01 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=50275 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KUsC8-0001X3-IC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:02:00 -0400 Original-Received: from mtps01.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.223]:38361) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KUsBy-00089v-Jf; Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:01:51 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mtps01.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71C351535A8; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:01:41 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 865701A25C3; Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:01:55 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <20080817073124.GA1294@muc.de> X-Mailer: VM ?bug? under XEmacs 21.5.21 (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) 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:102566 Archived-At: Alan Mackenzie writes: > That's a category error. I see no morphisms. How can there be a category? > 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? Why do you ask that we on your nightmares, or Richard's, to guide policy? > I am rather asserting the credible existence of a mechanism by > which Emacs could become essentially un-free. Well, let me propose that it's irrelevant, because I assert the credible existence of a mechanism involving loadable binaries by which XEmacs will become so superior to Emacs that only people still using Emacs are those willing to work two or more hours with Emacs when they could get the job done with XEmacs. No users, no unfreeness problem. ;-) Are you beginning to see how untenable your position is? 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. > 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). 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. In recent SXEmacs, I'm not sure that --with-modules is still supported, but that's OK because matters are even worse: .configure --with-ffi gives you a foreign function interface which allows you to access data and functions in any .so without any C-level hacking. > 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. 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.