Re: links2 with javascript
Hi,
Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Doug Smith, le Fri 23 Aug 2013 23:04:14 -0400, a écrit :
> > Hey, there. I am wondering if we can ever have a 64-bit version of
> > the kind of links2 web browser they have in adriene? This has some
> > javascript support in it, and there are some instructions on how to
> > compile it.
>
> This is a question better answered by the maintainer of links2, Axel
> Beckert, whom I have put in Cc.
The answer can be found in the upstream changelog of the links2
package (/usr/share/doc/links2/changelog.gz):
Mon Apr 16 01:49:07 MET DST 2007 mikulas:
Javascript was removed. The reason is that it is very buggy,
Martin Pergel doesn't have time to develop it and code is so messy
that no one else can understand it.
If you use links for special purposes (embedded devices, etc.),
you can bring javascript back by copying javascript files from
previous release, removing "dnl javascript" lines from
configure.in, adding *.c and *.h files to Makefile.am and
re-running automake and autoconf.
Javascript hooks from main code were not removed --- they just
won't be maintained.
As you can guess from these very clear words about the maintainedness
of links2's JavaScript code, I can't enable JavaScript support in
Debian's links2 package without opening a can of worms, eh, security
bugs. That definitely wouldn't be in the sense of Debian even if it
would be nice to have in some corner cases.
> > However, I tried this and it failed miserably on here with a sussy
> > cascade of errors that stopped the build process. I will attempt it
> > again if anyone wants to know what the errors were, but it all had to
> > do with the code that interfaces with the mozjs javascript engine.
>
> The interface that links2 uses is probably outdated unfortunately.
Yes, that's very likely, especially since Mozilla moved to a way more
agile release cycle two years ago or such. And that interface code is
likely untouched since 2007.
In case you'll find someone to maintain that code upstream, I might
think about it,, maybe in form of an additional links2-javascript
package to not need to pull in libmozjs on all systems where links2 is
installed.
Regards, Axel
--
,''`. | Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' : | Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
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