GnuPG 2.1 and Mailpile (LWN comments) about GPGME

[Werner Koch]

On Thu, 13 Nov 2014 16:02, rjh at sixdemonbag.org said:

> Not to beat a broken drum, but making it easier to use GPGME from a
> Microsoft environment would also be nice.  MSVC++ needs a .lib file for
> each DLL you're going to link against, and GPGME/Win32 doesn't ship with

Looking at the Gpg4win source I see

  SetOutPath "$INSTDIR\lib"
  File /oname=libgpgme.imp "${prefix}/lib/libgpgme.dll.a"
  File /oname=libgpgme-glib.imp "${prefix}/lib/libgpgme-glib.dll.a"

which means that an import file for the DLL is installed.  No library
for static linking but a DLL is anyway better.  Actually I added this on
your request:

commit c5404abb7cc8c284c2a8184a529fb0fdb82d8b50
Author: Werner Koch <wk at gnupg.org>
Date:   Wed Dec 5 10:18:43 2012 +0100

    Install development files for the GnuPG related libraries.
    
    * src/inst-gpgme.nsi: Install gpgme import lib and header file,
    * src/inst-libassuan.nsi: Likewise.
    * src/inst-libgcrypt.nsi: Likewise.
    * src/inst-libgpg-error.nsi: Likewise.
    * src/inst-libksba.nsi: Likewise.
    * src/uninst-gpg4win.nsi: Remove the new files.
    * src/uninst-gpgme.nsi: Ditto.
    * src/uninst-libassuan.nsi: Ditto.
    * src/uninst-libgcrypt.nsi: Ditto.
    * src/uninst-libgpg-error.nsi: Ditto.
    * src/uninst-libksba.nsi: Ditto.

> ideological purity, MS should be avoided; if our goal is to provide
> privacy tools to the most people possible, we need to consider MS
> environments to be a high priority.

It is and that is why I consider to separate GnuPG proper from Gpg4win
and provide a core installer with just the core.  This has not yet
happened because building a side-by-side assembly needs some more
experimenting or help.

The next installer for 2.1 should fix the major flaws from the first try
and be usable.  I will add the dev file too.  However, it still carries
the Pinentry and GPA which should be removed from the core installer.

Di you want to test a beta installer?

> Given the announcement yesterday from MS about how they're opening up
> the .NET server stack, I think we might see a resurgence of C# in the
> UNIX space.  I have to say, it'd be really nice to see C# bindings for
> GPGME.  There's already one set of them, gpgme-sharp, but I believe
> they're unmaintained.

Any volunteer to maintain one?


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner


-- 
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