Re: bug#32722: bug#32722: 26.1; Org-publish depend on non-free platform ?

[Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>]

Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com> writes:

> Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net> writes:
>
>> I'm not an expert on this package nor this situation, however, looking
>> at the htmlize.el file shows:
>>
>>     ;; Copyright (C) 1997-2003,2005,2006,2009,2011,2012,2014,2017,2018
>>
>> So it would appear that the package has existed longer than either
>> GitHub or Org.  I'm guessing that its author moved its primary repo to
>> GitHub after Org started using it.
>>
>> In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to move htmlize into
>> Emacs before adding it to Org proper.  But many things are clearer in
>> hindsight.
>>
>> Regardless of where it is hosted, htmlize.el is Free Software, and it's
>> an optional addon to Org.  We can encourage its author to add it to
>> Emacs proper, or to ELPA.  But surely it's not necessary to censor the
>> mention of "GitHub" in the manual; it's simply a fact that GitHub exists
>> and that htmlize.el is currently hosted there.  It would seem
>> unreasonable for the Org maintainers to have reacted to htmlize.el's
>> moving to GitHub by removing htmlize.el support while it remains Free
>> Software, yet that's the logical conclusion of this argument.
>>
>
> I had exactly the same reaction.

Me too!

>
>> So please do not remove support for this package because of where its
>> repo happens to be hosted at the moment.  That would be a major
>> regression, and it would not be in users' best interests.  It would not
>> be fair to remove a major feature used by thousands of users and demand
>> that "someone" (since there is no one ultimately responsible) rewrite
>> large parts of ox-html.el to fix it.  It would at least seem fair for
>> those insisting on the change to do the necessary work.
>>
>
> I don't usually +1 replies but I wanted to chime in my agreement with
> Adam here.  Thanks for taking the time to put your (and my!) thoughts
> into words.
>
> If Github is indeed the sticking point, why can't it (the htmlize
> repo) be cloned on the same server as org-mode (possibly as its own
> repo, possibly as a git submodule)? It's not a fast moving target: a
> handful or two of commits per year. The doc can then avoid the Gihub
> ref (although it does seem silly to pretend that Github does not
> exist).

I completely agree with Adam and Nick's take on this issue.  Breaking
HTML export by removing htmlize is going to have a huge negative impact
on Org users and since the package is already free software what is the
point?

Regards,
Bernt