Subject: bug#76120: [PATCH] Expose the native sharing dialog (macOS)

From: Björn Bidar <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:30:45 +0200

Po Lu <[email-masked]> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>>> From: Björn Bidar <[email-masked]>
>>> Cc: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>,  [email-masked],  Eli
>>>  Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
>>> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:14:22 +0200
>>> 
>>> Since xdg-open isn't the same as "sharing" doesn't that only circumvent
>>> the policy to not add functionality that is only supported on non-free
>>> platforms?
>>
>> After all the discussions we had about the meaning of "sharing" in
>> this case, what exactly makes you say xdg-open etc. are not equivalent
>> to this "sharing"? just the fact that xdg-open doesn't have an option
>> called literally "share", or something else?
>>
>> IOW, would you please describe the general functionality that the
>> proposed "sharing" offers and xdg-open doesn't?
>
> I won't object to implementing Bluetooth "sharing", since a file can
> easily be sent through e.g. blueman-sendto, but I will object to the
> dialog proposed by the OP.  Contrasting the facilities exposed by this
> dialog with their GNU/Linux equivalents is beside the point of our
> policy against features which place proprietary systems at an advantage,
> because our object in doing so is to prevent the creation of any
> material incentive in Emacs that might motivate users to install Mac OS,
> not simply to guarantee that Emacs on Mac OS holds no advantage in raw
> capabilities over Emacs on free systems.  I say this dialog is certainly
> such an incentive, as attested by the existence of this patch rather
> than a patch adding aliases from xdg-open and blueman to AppleScript
> workalikes.  You and I may not be vain enough for such features to
> influence our preferences as regards operating systems, but you cannot
> deny that people exist whom they do influence.

Thank you for putting so direct. You might have worded it much better
than me. Point being is also that all the sharing options prepulated by
the OS without the user having to do anything in all apps and Emacs,
including those offending of the proprietary entries, which isn't
possible anywhere. E.g. I couldn't just reuse all the option provided by
KDE in that dialog without some direct integration here. 

> What is more, half of the dialog is devoted to Apple's proprietary file
> sharing protocol, AirDrop.  Any person can see the folly in providing a
> direct interface to a proprietary file sharing system in Emacs, never
> mind such a file sharing system as is only available on one brand of
> computer.

Would it possible to disable AirDrop in this dialog? 

> And it breaks the GNUstep build, though that is the least of
> our concerns.

Assuming till GNUStep would implement the API?