Re: [Bug-wget] [wget 1.13] [configure error] Forcing to use GnuTLS? --with-ssl was given, but GNUTLS is not available

[Perry Smith]

On Aug 14, 2011, at 7:59 AM, Giuseppe Scrivano wrote:

> Perry Smith <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>> I took a stab at installing GNUTLS and gave up.  The beauty of wget is
>> I can get it going with very few things needed.  I compiled without ssl
>> at all but getting openssl going is fairly easy too.  GNUTLS is asking
>> for nettle, zlib, and something else (according to the web page) but
>> then it snuck up and started asking for pkg-config.  That is way down
>> the list in my bring up sequence.
> 
> there is no gnu tls package for your system?  Is there need to compile
> everything?

Yes.  A base AIX system starts with no open source packages that are
worth having (the ones that exist are old and not built properly).  I am
(and many others) try to come up with a sequence to start with almost
nothing and build it up.  wget, at the start, is very key since it is easier
to build (fewer dependencies) than curl.

>> I guess... I don't get what is wrong with openssl. Why do we need GNUTLS
>> at all? ("we" being the open source community.)
> 
> Here[1] you can find a good explanation.  OpenSSL is still supported, as
> the GNU TLS backend is not as mature as the OpenSSL, my hope is that
> pushing it by default will make things change in the future.
> If you have so many problems with GNU TLS, what is difficult about
> --with-ssl=openssl to configure?
> 
> 1) http://people.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html

For the initial build, without-ssl is what I did.  I wasn't trying to say
that it was crippling but just pointing out that open ssl is easier
to build.

As far as [1] -- wget doesn't include it so its not a big deal for wget at
all.  For the people that distribute a compiled wget, I'd say let them
wrestle with the problem.  I'd be tempted to make the default 
without-ssl and then allow people to (deliberately) pick their poison 
if they want to / need to.

I also find it sad that so much effort goes into GNUTLS just to
avoid appending one or two sentences to a document that
no one reads anyway.

pedz