From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: MAIL_USE_FLOCK and Debian. Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 08:59:44 -0500 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <87lm0ijabw.fsf@raven.i.defaultvalue.org> <87znoxi93a.fsf@raven.i.defaultvalue.org> <87ptpqhqjp.fsf@raven.i.defaultvalue.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1045577023 30761 80.91.224.249 (18 Feb 2003 14:03:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 14:03:43 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18l8LV-0007zs-00 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:03:41 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 18l8aQ-0006na-00 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:19:06 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18l8NS-00027N-01 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 09:05:42 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 18l8MY-0001sU-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 09:04:46 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 18l8MX-0001s4-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 09:04:45 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18l8Hg-000108-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 08:59:44 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.10) id 18l8Hg-0001uV-00; Tue, 18 Feb 2003 08:59:44 -0500 Original-To: Rob Browning In-reply-to: <87ptpqhqjp.fsf@raven.i.defaultvalue.org> (message from Rob Browning on Mon, 17 Feb 2003 09:31:38 -0600) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:11730 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:11730 OK. After thinking about it a bit more, I agree. You're absolutely right that a run-time setting would be better. However, part of the problem is that this policy is currently handled by the external movemail program, so we'd have to figue out how to allow runtime customization. I would guess perhaps an /etc file, or command-line arguments, though the latter probably wouldn't make it easy enough to provide site-wide defaults... A command line argument would let Emacs control the decision, but I think that is undesirable. People might use movemail from other programs too. We don't want to make it easy to use movemail wrong. So movemail itself should figure out which way to do the job. I think that the existence of some file somewhere in the file system is the right way to control this. I think so, but with regard to the implementation. I think one of the complicating factors is that the actual policies can be reasonably complex, i.e. do you use flock and something else, flock first or last, etc? I thought we had just three alternatives to consider: liblockfile, and the two alternatives now implemented in movemail. Now you seem to be proposing additional alternatives. I am not sure exactly what they are; it sounds like you propose that movemail do more than one of those three. Why do you propose that? - I'm not sure if you know, but for Debian at least, the locking strategy embodied in liblockfile is also a well-defined algorithm, and policy doesn't actually require programs to use liblockfile (as far as I recall), but just requires them to follow the algorithm specified, so it would be possible to DTRT straight from emacs. This does not affect the issue as far as I can see.