Re: lynx-dev Alert: this client does not contain support for HTTPS urls.

[Jacob Poon]

On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Philip Webb wrote:

> 980810 Steven Sawczyn wrote: 
> > w32 version of Lynx 2.81.
> 
> the latest release is 2-8; 2-8-1 is under development.
> 
> > When going to secure sites, I get "This browser does not contain support
> > for https urls".  a few people claim to be able to access these sites,
> > but they did not actually compile their browser
> > & don't know if it's something which must be compiled in.
>  
> yup, it has to be compiled in: to get started,
> see the section in  www.chass.utoronto.ca/~purslow/lhfb.html .

Since someone mentioned it, I think it is time to ask this question:

Shouldn't Lynx support https via externals (from the lynx.cfg settings),
to produce cleaner code without breaking the law?  What I mean is, if Lynx
contains only code for handling data via existing https connections, but
uses only a third-party executable to negotiate https connections via an
executable configured by Lynx's 'EXTERNAL:' settings, will the Lynx source
still be legal and GNU free? 

If this doesn't break the law, it will greatly simplify https support. 
For example, if Lynx can't go to https URLs, users can simply download a
compiled binary to let Lynx go to those places, without recompiling.