Re: master 3d38d1d: Add sqlite3 support to Emacs

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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  > IANAL, but I think it would be safer to avoid the legal complications of
  > that by removing it immediately, until the relevant lawyers find a
  > solution.

You have the right basic approach to this problem.  The problem is
grave and hard; we don't know whether there is an adequate solution.
We won't know unless/until we find one.

While a feature is in that state of doubt, it should not be included.
We should install it if and when we know it is correct to do so.
Installing it prematurely is unwise, so we need to de-install it.

I want to correct one detail.  This is not a legal problem, it's a
moral problem.  There is no "answer" that lawyers could tell us that
would fix it.

We have discussed technical solutions that could make dynamic loading
of modules morally ok, but implementing them seems like a hassle.  It
looks like few users will use them anyway, which would imply that
implementing a solution is not worth the trouble.

If we confirm that, it will follows that the right thing to do is to
keep dynamic loading of sqlite3 modules completely off in Emacs.
It seems that's easy.

Unless/until we know that it is ok to give Emacs the dynamic sqlite3
module feature, we should not install it.

Po Lu, would you please remove that feature (disable that code)?

If we do find later that it is ok to enable that feature, it won't be
hard to install it then.

Lars is right that there are always ways for users do modify a free
program to do whatever they wish.  That's the nature of free software.
That's how things should be.

So if we were trying to make it _impossible_ for users to modify Emacs
to run with a nonfree dynamically loaded sqlite3 module, that would be
futile -- and wrong.  As developers of a free program, we can't _stop_
users from modifying it to do whatever they wish, and we don't want to
try.

Which is why this issue is not about "stopping" users from making such
modifications, or whether we can "stop" them.  Those questions are
distractions.  This question is about what Emacs _as we distribute it_
does, and what it should do.

Unless we find a way to make the sqlite3 dynamical module capability
ok, we should not implement that capability.

Po Lu, would you please turn off that sqlite3 dynamical module capability?

Lars metioned something called LD_PRELOAD.  I don't know what that is,
and I can't find it in the documentation I have here.  I don't know
whether it makes a difference for this issue, and I would like to
study that question.

Would someone please point me at an explanation of what LD_PRELOAD
does, with docs for how to use it?  Also, which part of the GNU/Linux
system implements it?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)