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

From: Alvaro Ramirez <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Feb 2025 18:10:26 +0000

Thanks for the details Stefan

Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]> writes:

> According to our guidelines, we must have the same functionality 
> on
> GNU/Linux before we can install it for a non-free system.[1] 
> This is
> also documented in nextstep/README.

If that's the official guideline, I suppose there isn't much room 
for guideline discussion, unless you think it's worth revisiting 
the current stance in 2025.

> In other words, the feature you have proposed sounds useful, and 
> we are
> grateful for your contribution.  However, we really would need 
> it
> working on GNU/Linux, as a part of core, before we can install 
> such a
> feature on macOS.  The reasons for this are detailed in the link 
> below,
> but comes down to us not wanting to make Emacs better on 
> non-free
> operating systems than it is on free ones.

I've been gradually dipping my toes into upstream contributions 
(not just macOS-related) in the hope I can maybe become a more 
active contributor in the future.

While I understand the spirit of the guideline, I can't help but 
feel a bit discouraged to contribute my other packages and/or 
other patches which are typically platform-agnostic.

Somehow, feels like a net loss.

>
> Would you or anyone else be interested in implementing this for
> GNU/Linux as well?  I don't think we need perfect coverage of 
> all
> desktop environments, but it would be useful to support it on 
> one or more
> popular ones (for example Gnome or KDE).

Skills-wise, I wouldn't be the best candidate to make the 
Linux-related changes. I could try reaching out to Carl Lieberman, 
author of https://github.com/carldotac/kdeconnect.el, to see if 
they'd be inclined to contribute their package upstream.

> This would also be a good opportunity to generalize the feature, 
> so that
> instead of having `ns-share`, we would have a command named 
> `share-file`
> or something like that.

Without a Linux partner to help with the counter changes, I'm less 
likely to take on the additional scope.

I could also reach out to emacs-devel if you reckon it's 
appropriate to scout Linux support.

>
> Footnotes:
> [1] 
> https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Non_002dGNU_002donly-Features