Re: [A] External GIF support [Request for Comment]
On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull<stephen(a)xemacs.org> wrote:
APPROVE
Redirected discussion to xemacs-beta, this needs checking IMO.
Absolutely! Please, would a few of you apply the patch and let me
know if you run into any problems?
Specifically, people on Windows, and non-Linux non-*BSD Unix which
might not have giflib available, or not have it where Jerry thinks you
should have it. :-) (Note you should wait a bit before updating as
Jerry hasn't committed yet.)
Yes, I especially could use some feedback from the Windows crowd. I
tried to update the Windows build files in a way that seemed
appropriate, but I use Linux exclusively these days, both at home and
at work. I remember from my days of hacking Cygwin support several
years ago that there is some place where I'm supposed to put a giflib
tar file, but I don't remember where that place is. Could someone jog
my memory, please?
Removing the internal support seems a bit drastic. Why not leave it
in for say six months, but completely #ifndef USE_INTERNAL_GIF'ed out
(and with a comment saying "if nobody reports a need by 2010/03/01,
please remove this obsolete code"? If somebody wants to get running
with GIF in a hurry but doesn't have an immediately accessible giflib,
they can just add a
#define USE_INTERNAL_GIF 1
to src/config.h by hand. No need to autoconfiscate this
"USE_INTERNAL_GIF" hack.
Mostly because I don't want to wait until 2010/03/01 for GPLv3. :-)
It doesn't seem like such a drastic step to me because (1) we mostly
rely on PNG support, not so much on GIF support [1]; (2) Emacs relies
solely on giflib for its GIF support [2]; (3) giflib is available for
a wide range of platforms; and (4) the change is to be made to the
beta version of XEmacs.
If you insist, I'll add the USE_INTERNAL_GIF hack, but I'd rather get
the license-free code [3] out of our repository sooner rather than
later, and deal with any problems that causes as we identify them.
Actually, I do know of a problem. The animated GIF support is
haywire: they look like Krazy Kops. Must be something wrong with the
timer. I'll have a look before I commit anything.
Footnotes:
[1] There are no GIF files in the core distribution. On the other
hand, xslt-process, jde, and liece contain GIF files.
[2] And they support Windows and a number of non-Linux OSes, too.
[3] Speaking of license-free code, is anyone in touch with Bill Perry?
--
Jerry James
http://www.jamezone.org/
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