From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Simon Josefsson Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: lisp/url/url-https.el Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:54:45 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1081763828 27913 80.91.224.253 (12 Apr 2004 09:57:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 09:57:08 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Mon Apr 12 11:56:59 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BCyBX-0004Cn-00 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:56:59 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BCyBX-0005Xg-00 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:56:59 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1BCxEy-0004zW-Rd for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 04:56:28 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1BCxEs-0004vj-M9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 04:56:22 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1BCxEr-0004vU-8G for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 04:56:21 -0400 Original-Received: from [80.91.224.249] (helo=main.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1BCxDN-0004HP-D3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 04:54:49 -0400 Original-Received: from list by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BCy9T-00018c-00 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:54:51 +0200 Original-Received: from h246n3c1o299.bredband.skanova.com ([217.208.174.246]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:54:51 +0200 Original-Received: from jas by h246n3c1o299.bredband.skanova.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:54:51 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Lines: 31 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: h246n3c1o299.bredband.skanova.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.110002 (No Gnus v0.2) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:brc+g9aIS88FcxzJICB7U7jV/ls= X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:21521 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:21521 Richard Stallman writes: > Are url-https.el and ssl.el really specifically designed to call > encryption routines? I thought they only run some external communication > program which happens to use encryption. > > I am not sure whether this makes a difference. I had better get legal > advice about this. Could someone describe for me the overall > structure of the situation, so I can ask about it? The general idea is that URL (and other elisp packages, such as Gnus, W3 and maybe others) need SSL/TLS functionality in order to connect to HTTP or IMAP servers (for browing the web, or reading mail) that uses SSL/TLS. OpenSSL or GNUTLS provides that, via a command line interface (I wrote patches to make an elisp API for them, via the shared libraries, but they were never adopted). Since having each and every elisp application write its own OpenSSL/GNUTLS handling, ssl.el was presumably written, mimicking the open-network-stream API, only that it open the stream over a SSL/TLS connection via the command line application. The point of SSL/TLS is to provide authentication, integrity and/or encryption (all optional, and can be configured in very high detail, although this configuration is probably not possible via a command line application, but would have been one of the features of my direct elisp API to the libraries). The default behaviour of both OpenSSL and GNUTLS is to negotiate the most secure, mutually implemented, algorithms, though. I wrote tls.el that uses GNUTLS, instead of OpenSSL which ssl.el uses. Gnus and smtpmail.el uses tls.el, and if possible I think url-https.el should as well. I'm not sure we need ssl.el in Emacs, it might be better to make users use GNUTLS instead of OpenSSL.