Re: Another update of GNU TLS bindings

[Simon Josefsson]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

>     It does use GNUTLS, but since GNUTLS is a compile time option, it
>     cannot be assumed to be available.  Hence the addition of ssl.el which
>     invokes OpenSSL as a fallback if GNUTLS was not compiled with Emacs.
>
> How does it invoke OpenSSL (when it does)?

With `start-process'.

> Why can't it invoke GNUTLS the same way?

GNUTLS is a library, OpenSSL is both a library and an application.
William's ssl.el invokes the binary.  This is a inflexible method, it
is complicated to find out what algorithms chosed during the TLS
handshake, and generally difficult to do anything interactive during
the TLS handshake.

Even if GNUTLS shipped with a binary allowing it to do all the things
OpenSSL currently does, it would not be satisfactory.