Re: proposal: require GnuTLS 3.1.x (previous stable)

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2014 10:14:12 +0100 address@hidden (Peder O. Klingenberg) wrote: 

POK> On Tue, Nov 25 2014 at 18:55, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
>> Yes, although I’d rather question the necessity of building
>> Emacs ‘master’ on an LTS GNU/Linux system.  If the intent is to
>> use the last decade’s versions of Libc and Coreutils, – why
>> Emacs has to be newer than that?

POK> Because features.  My desktop machine runs Kubuntu 10.04 still, because
POK> it mostly does what I need without needing my attention all the time, it
POK> is a stable platform I can use to get work done.

Peder, your whole argument could have applied to supporting GnuTLS 1.x
back when we added support for 2.x the first time, because people still
used it and didn't want to upgrade their system.  Inertia is not a bad
thing, but we're talking about the master branch of The Most Advanced
Editor Ever Invented(TM).  Sacrifices must be made :)

Supporting older versions of GnuTLS is not like supporting older PNG or
XML parsers and such. I want to point out that supporting older GnuTLS
libraries carries actual risk for all users, like this scenario:

1) support for 2.x requires a specific contortion in the code
2) inadvertently the developers apply this contortion to 3.x as well
3) 3.x users get bug/security hole surprise

or this one:

1) both 2.x and 3.x are installed (yes, it happens)
2) the user inadvertently compiles with 2.x
3) the user gets bug/security hole surprise

I'm sure we can argue about this for a while, but I personally would
just like to set a cutover date where GnuTLS 2.x is not supported, not
debate convenience and featuritis. How about Emacs 26?

Ted