Re: FLIM files

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

Jesper Harder <harder@myrealbox.com> writes:

> "Simon Josefsson" <simon@josefsson.org> writes:
>
>> +	* sasl.el, sasl-cram.el, sasl-digest.el, hmac-md5.el, hmac-def.el:
>> +	New files.
>>
>> +;;; hmac-def.el --- A macro for defining HMAC functions.
>> +
>> +;; Copyright (C) 1999, 2001  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>> +
>> +;; Author: Shuhei KOBAYASHI <shuhei@aqua.ocn.ne.jp>
>> +;; Keywords: HMAC, RFC 2104
>> +
>> +;; This file is part of FLIM (Faithful Library about Internet Message).
>
> Some general question about files from FLIM:

Good questions.  I don't really know the answer, here's just my
opinion:

> * Should the versions in Gnus be considered a fork?  Should changes in
>   Gnus CVS be passed upstream to the FLIM maintainers (I don't think
>   we have done that for some of the existing files derived from FLIM).

Yes, ideally.  For PGG, I recall CC'ing the PGG authors on some
patches initially, but I'm not sure anyone read them or did anything
with the patches, so I stopped.  Maybe we could submit all
modifications between FLIM and Gnus 5.10?  Perhaps better to ask
first.  Any FLIM people reading this list?

As for the SASL package, when I worked on getting copyright
assignments signed for it, I said the reason was to be able to include
the files in Gnus.  Renaming or forking wasn't discussed then.

> * If it _is_ a fork, wouldn't it be wise to rename the files to
>   different names to reduce the risk of clashes?

I dunno.  The best would be to have Gnus nurse the files into Emacs
proper, and accepting patches from the FLIM team as we proceed, and
possibly also send patches to the FLIM team if they are interested.
I.e., make Emacs the canonical location for the files, and the Gnus
and FLIM teams maintain their own more frequently modified copies.