Re: Install C source code for for debugging help

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 13:37:37 -0700
> 
> This patch lets builders choose whether to install the compressed 
> source. The default is to install it, as the filesystem overhead of 
> installing the source code (about 2% of the typical install size) is 
> typically not worth worrying about; plus, there is value in encouraging 
> builders to better follow the free-software principle of making it easy 
> for users to study how Emacs works. Builders can also choose to not 
> install the source, or to have Emacs refer to place where the source was 
> located when Emacs was built (this last approach does not work in 
> typical GNU/Linux distributions, as the build location is not available 
> when Emacs is run).

Why do we need any change at all, given that source-directory is a
variable that a user can change, if the sources are not in the place
where Emacs was built?  The help system even prompts for that
directory, AFAIR.

In any case, installing sources by default doesn't sound TRT to me,
since we currently don't do that, and there were no complaints.  We
could consider making such a change later, if there's sufficient
demand.

> I'm mentioning this proposed patch on emacs-devel to see whether anyone 
> sees a problem with the idea before I install the patch.

I'd like to avoid any more significant changes on master, until we cut
the emacs-27 branch (cannot be done yet because there are 2
significant changes on feature branches waiting to be merged).  We
have more than enough new and potentially destabilizing
changes/features on master already; time to leave something for the
future releases.

Thanks.