Re: gnupg problem
>From Hubert Chan on Thursday, 21 June, 2001:
>>>>>> "Joseph" == Joseph Pingenot <jap3003@ksu.edu> writes:
>below). Although if you volunteer to make it happen... :-)
>Hubert> Changing all the packages to work properly wouldn't be a simple
>Hubert> task. (Not saying that it's a bad idea, though.)
>Joseph> Aside from the issues of creating a unified command line
>Joseph> interface, I don't see how.
>Well, the problem isn't in creating the wrappers (IMHO). It's in making
>the front-ends work with the wrappers: it wouldn't be as simple as
>doing a search-and-replace for pgp with dpgpw. Some programs (I'm sure
>that x-pgp-sig-el isn't the only one) think that they know something
>about the pgp implementation, and so making these programs work with the
>wrapper might require some extra effort.
*Now* I see what you're referring to. Too many trees.... Can't see
forest.... :)
Although it *sounds* complicated (and probably is), an interim
solution could be a 3-tier (3-animal? :) approach:
0) Application calls, say, pgp with pgp syntax.
1) A pgp-xlat package (?), maintained by the PGP person, is used
to translate the pgp commandline to the generic commandline.
It would create a PGP->dpgpw translation, invoking dpgpw at
the end. PGP wouldn't necessarily need to be installed, only
pgp-xlat, which would have a pgp->dpgpw translation wrapper in,
say, /usr/bin/pgp. If PGP happens to be installed, it could be
called, say, /usr/bin/pgp-real.
2) dpgpw then uses the dpgpw-<implementation> wrapper to translate
the generic syntax to the implementation-specific syntax
3) the implementation is called and all goes on as if pgp were
actually called.
The only prolems are:
a) This is pretty complex
b) This involves even *more* packages to be installed. This point could
be minimized if all pgp implementers worked together to create a
*single* pgp-xlat package containing their specific translations
to the generic commandline. Hrm. Or all translations could be
bound up into the ever-less-virtual generic pgp package.
c) This *still* doesn't address the problem brought up before of the
different implementations' different, well, implementations. :)
d) This requires work and lots of coordination.
This would *might* go a *ways* to making *most* front-ends be able
to use *most* pgp implementations, but the best solution still remains
getting frontend developers and pgp implementers to sit down and
unify on these things.
Sure is a fun puzzle to problem-solve, though. ;)
-Joseph
--
Joseph==============================================jap3003@ksu.edu
"IBM were providing source code in the 1960's under similar terms.
VMS source code was available under limited licenses to customers
from the beginning. Microsoft are catching up with 1960."
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