Re: Support open-process and friends on MS-Windows

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
> Cc: mhw@netris.org,  wingo@pobox.com,  guile-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:09:47 +0200
> 
> >> >>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> >> >>> > +# define getuid()              (500) /* Local Administrator */
> >> >>> > +# define getgid()              (513) /* None */
> >> >>> > +# define setuid(u)             (0)
> >> >>> > +# define setgid(g)             (0)
> >> 
> >> What about leaving ‘setuid’ and ‘setgid’ undefined, as was the case
> >> until now?
> >
> > I fail to see how this would be better.  It would mean any program
> > that calls these will not work on MS-Windows.  Why should we expect
> > developers of those Guile programs to be aware of the issue and solve
> > it on the Guile Scheme level?  And what solution will they possibly be
> > able to come up with, except not to call these APIs on Windows?
> 
> Our strategy so far has been to (1) either solve the portability issue
> via Gnulib, or (2) do not provide the feature that is unavailable (the
> #ifdef HAVE_ in posix.c et al.)
> 
> It means that application writers have to be aware of the portability
> problems, even if it’s all Scheme.  That sounds reasonable to me.
> 
> WDYT?

I don't think it's wise, and I explained why.  Gnulib in this case is
unlikely to provide any implementation, except one that always fails,
because these operations have no equivalent on MS-Windows.

But if agreeing to remove these two lines will cause the rest of the
patch to be finally admitted, I'm fine with that compromise.

TIA