Re: GnuTLS for W32

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,
>     address@hidden
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:03:26 +0900
> 
> I don't know the details, but I'm pretty sure that Python does support
> DLLs anywhere that a .py can be found, though, because where something
> lives on PYTHONPATH is essential to figuring out what its name (as a
> module in Python) is.

That's also what I know (although my Python-related knowledge is
considerably smaller than yours).

But there is a difference between Python's .pyd DLLs and
general-purpose DLLs such as libgnutls.  The former are generally not
useful for anything but Python programs.  By contrast, the latter can
be used by programs that have nothing to do with Emacs.  For example,
GnuTLS is used by wget (in fact, building the latest wget was the
original reason why I built the latest GnuTLS on Windows).

For this reason, I think we should give Emacs users an option to put
the downloaded DLL in some directory that is not Emacs-specific, so
that other programs could use it.

>  > > [1]  Except that we don't provide DLLs for download, for various
>  > > reasons, the most important of which is that binary distributions are
>  > > bug magnets that distract the maintainers disproportionately, and
>  > > non-maintainers are generally unwilling to touch.
>  > 
>  > That point was made in this thread more than once, but Ted is still
>  > pushing for it.  Which is fine by me, assuming that someone will step
>  > forward and do the job.
> 
> In my experience, such volunteers are only reliable in the long run if
> they're paid to support Emacs by building installers etc.  But it's a
> new year, so anything could happen!  Good luck finding the volunteer!

Seconded.