From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs rewrite in a maintainable language Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:36:48 +0200 Message-ID: <87si56gfe7.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <561A19AB.5060001@cumego.com> <87lhb1n81y.fsf@gnu.org> <83si594wt3.fsf@gnu.org> <87io64iigs.fsf@gnu.org> <87r3kso1gr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87wpuks5ek.fsf@T420.taylan> <83vba4i1z3.fsf@gnu.org> <87pp0cqgjf.fsf@T420.taylan> <83twpoi0sp.fsf@gnu.org> <878u70qf75.fsf@T420.taylan> <83mvvghydi.fsf@gnu.org> <5623E3B5.8050407@dancol.org> <87y4f0kos9.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <5623EAB2.5000008@dancol.org> <87pp0cotqd.fsf@T420.taylan> <5623F7E2.3010200@dancol.org> <87d1wbp9uv.fsf@T420.taylan> <22052.51982.9833.353851@turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87oafvje34.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <22053.49279.736417.377442@turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1445326757 15130 80.91.229.3 (20 Oct 2015 07:39:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 07:39:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 20 09:39:13 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZoRVm-00036C-MK for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:39:10 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44317 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZoRVg-0005Pe-S4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 03:39:04 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57490) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZoRVb-0005Ln-2n for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 03:39:00 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZoRVZ-0004UY-QN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 03:38:59 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:58992) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZoRVZ-0004UT-Mo; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 03:38:57 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:44576 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1ZoRVV-00052U-U0; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 03:38:55 -0400 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 96B5EDF46D; Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:36:48 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <22053.49279.736417.377442@turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> (Stephen J. Turnbull's message of "Tue, 20 Oct 2015 13:18:07 +0900") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:192156 Archived-At: "Stephen J. Turnbull" writes: > David Kastrup writes: > > > My personal opinion is that It's unlikely to survive into GuileEmacs for > > mostly technical reasons. The best one could do is make it stick when a > > module calls Emacs-specific functionality. But if it uses the general > > GUILE stuff (namely could be called from a standard GUILE interpreter), > > Emacs cannot really make a licensing claim that sticks. > > [David pointed this out elsewhere, but I want to emphasize: GUILE > distributed as a part of Emacs is GPL, not LGPL, and the protection of > the GPL extends to all code in the Emacs process space. GuileEmacs > can be distributed only because the LGPL allows promotion to GPL.] "process space" is not a legal concept. It might be a programmer's rationale of the "dynamic and static linking make no difference with regard to whether a single work is being formed" guideline (that has not actually been tested in court I think, with the closest likely being deep linking of http references so far). Nobody claims that ld.so is a derivative of all the software it ends up sharing process space with. Of course, like with GCC stubs and a few other things, the licensing tends to be chosen in a manner where this question does not need to get resolved one way or the other. > > I also like the availability of applications and libraries that > > have not been written specifically for Emacs: replacing much of the > > backend behind Emacs Calc with native Jacal would be an interesting > > feat, and there are a number of other pathways opening up. > > Indeed interesting, although these days I'd be more interested in > numpy and numba. But I agree with your word "feat"; I'd be surprised > when it happened; I suspect Jay Belanger isn't so interested in that. > Maybe he'll speak up. Well, realistically speaking calc is strictly in maintenance mode even though I applaud the addition of some music-related functions recently. I'm not even sure that I wasn't at one time its maintainer. At least I remember prompting David Gillespie monthly for trying to dig up and send over his personal tree of Calc 2.0 (which would have significanly sped up a lot of operations, partly due to better simplifications, partly because of using Emacs 19 floating point numbers for getting much faster initial approximations for the arbitrary-precision math stuff than the 24-bit integer stuff from Emacs 18 could). This kind of surgery hasn't happened and Calc 2.0 will likely die along with Dave's backup disks. Swapping in something like gmp would likely require lots fewer surgical cuts, and even swapping in Jacal while keeping most of the frontend would likely be easier for someone with the basic skill set "Emacs programmer and maintainer" rather than "numerical algorithm hacker". > > So I do see longterm goals and strategies that could be opened by a > > good integration of GUILE as a core part of Emacs. > > Sure. I just don't see them *for me* and *right now*. Oh, *right now* never was much of a GNU priority. It has always been for the long haul. > > The most relevant obstacle _will_ be to overcome the "don't mess > > with my project" stance in both Emacs and GUILE from people that > > have come to like the respective culture and environment of the > > isolated projects. > > Most likely. :-( But if it really looks like a great idea, RMS will > come and threaten to knock heads, and that will be all it takes for > all to turn sweetness and light (you and me excepted, of course ;-). Shrug. The whetstone opposes the knife. -- David Kastrup