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

[Kaushal Modi <kaushal.modi@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 9:55 PM Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net> wrote:

> 1.  Why not?  I just git-blamed this line in ox-html.el:
>
>   (declare-function htmlize-region "ext:htmlize" (beg end))
>
> It's from February, 2012.  That's 6 and a half years, at least, that
> that code has been present.  Why are we suddenly concerned about it?

I just so happens that someone recently filed this bug report:
https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=32722.

htmlize.el was living in the Org contrib directory until Aug 2017:

=====
commit d0ced98943da0e5851ba1145515db27e939bff08
Author: Bastien <bzg@gnu.org>
Date:   Fri Aug 18 09:54:19 2017 +0200

    Delete htmlize.el from Org’s contrib directory

    * lisp/ox-org.el (org-org-publish-to-org):
    * lisp/ox-html.el (org-html-htmlize-generate-css):
    (org-html-fontify-code):
    * lisp/org-agenda.el (org-agenda-write): Throw an error
    requesting the user to install htmlize.el.

    * doc/org.texi (Exporting agenda views, Literal examples):
    Don’t assume htmlize.el is available.

    You need to install it from https://github.com/hniksic/emacs-htmlize

    See https://github.com/hniksic/emacs-htmlize/issues/7 for this issue.

diff --git a/lisp/ox-html.el b/lisp/ox-html.el
--- a/lisp/ox-html.el
+++ b/lisp/ox-html.el
@@ -1746,1 +1747,1 @@
-  (require 'htmlize)
+      (error "Please install htmlize from
https://github.com/hniksic/emacs-htmlize"))
=====

That change lived in Org master branch (devel) for a while, then
propagated to Org 9.1 and eventually to Emacs 26.1 release. So users
switching from Emacs 25.3 to 26.1. would see as an abrupt change, when
in fact it's just that htmlize.el got removed from contrib and instead
started being correctly referenced to its source on GitHub.

> 2.  Is Org part of "Emacs core"?  I didn't think that was how "Emacs
> core" was defined, but I may be wrong.  It is officially part of Emacs,
> of course.  So is there a distinction between "part of Emacs" and "Emacs
> core"?

Sorry, please don't quote me on that. By "Emacs core", I meant all
packages that you can get from an Emacs installation without having to
fetch one from internet.

> Are there any other "time bombs"
> in Org that we should be concerned about?

Not that I know of. I think this is the only one.

> a.  That is not the originally stated problem.

Yes, I know. The original problem was GitHub, and it snowballed to
"htmlize cannot be fetched from outside Emacs". It's just so happens
that someone noticed it and filed a bug report. In Emacs 25.3, if
htmlize weren't installed, it would have thrown an error when (require
'htmlize) got executed (or not, if people were using org-plus-contrib
which htmlize was part of, until Aug 2017).

> 4.  I'm certainly in favor of using built-in libraries as much as
> possible.  If htmlfontify is a better or equivalent solution, and
> someone's willing to write the code and ensure there are no regressions,
> that would be great, because it would save users from having to manually
> install other packages to get expected functionality.

+1

> 5.  Having a passing familiarity with the complexity of the Org code
> base, I am concerned about the potential for regressions in
> functionality and usability.  I'm also a bit disappointed to see this
> burden potentially thrust upon Nicolas and other Org maintainers, to
> replace working code that's existed for over 6 years, for little-to-no
> technical reason.  Their time available for working on Org is very
> valuable.

That's my concern too. And I think that it's mainly Nicolas, and in
another thread, he mentioned that he will do this refactoring, but
without an urgency (which makes sense).