Bug 904322

Summary:	www-client/elinks: enable 'gemini' protocol
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Anna Vyalkova <cyber+gentoo>
Component:	Current packages	Assignee:	Felix Janda <felix.janda>
Status:	UNCONFIRMED ---
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	gentoo, proxy-maint
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Anna Vyalkova 2023-04-14 10:38:13 UTC

I'd like to have Gemini support in ELinks.

Also USE flags shouldn't be used for functionality that doesn't require any
external dependencies[0] (like 'ftp' and 'gopher').

[0]: https://devmanual.gentoo.org/general-concepts/use-flags/index.html#when-not-to-use-use-flags

Comment 1 Sam James archtester

2023-04-16 06:16:00 UTC

(In reply to Anna Vyalkova from comment #0)
> I'd like to have Gemini support in ELinks.
> 
> Also USE flags shouldn't be used for functionality that doesn't require any
> external dependencies[0] (like 'ftp' and 'gopher').
> 

It's not as simple as that. That's a good reason to not use a USE flag, but it's still appropriate if a feature is experimental, might be undesirable for e.g. security reasons, or increases build time substantially.

Comment 2 Tadeáš Erban 2023-09-16 12:21:46 UTC

The Gemini protocol support is one of the core features of elinks (at least IMO), as the sort of people who would seriously use Gentoo as their OS and E-Links as their web browser are much more likely to use the Gemini protocol (I'm one of them).

Your argument about increasing build time substantially doesn't hold water, as Gemini is an incredibly lightweight protocol with the only major libraries it requires is TLS (built by default) and URL parsing.

As far as experimental and insecure features go - Gentoo is supposed to be all about choice and it probably is not as insecure as you think it if even Debian ships it. If you are too worried, you can just turn it off by default.