Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Antoine Levitt]

05/07/11 23:05, Richard Stallman
>     FWIW, I almost never run make install as root for Emacs.
>
> That susprises me -- could you explain why not?

For instance, I used to use school servers that use an antiquated
version of emacs, and I wanted the last one, so I just reinstalled emacs
+ the libs it needed in ~/new_root, with PREFIX=$HOME/new_root
./configure.

> Anyway, the crucial case here is a multi-user machine where the person
> using Emacs does not understand system maintenance and did not install
> Emacs himself.  This is the case where there is probably a functioning
> MTA plus users who use it without knowing what it is.  In that case,
> `make install' was run as root.
>
> Thus, when `make install' is run not as root, it would be ok
> not to decide, and let Emacs ask the user whatr to do.
>
> The other way Emacs gets installed is from a package, via apt-get
> or something like it.  That always gets done as root.
>
> Thus, we can assume this test is done running as root.

Except apt-get doesn't call make install, so it's a package maintainer
gotcha.