Re: persistent data feature

[Richard Stallman]

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[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
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  > Why link sqlite and not xapian?

As a general point, we don't have an obligation to make Emacs support
all free database packages that anyone might want to use.  If
supporting sqlite3 "does the job", we don't need to do that job again
with another package.

(At present we know of a grave flaw in sqlite3, and we don't know
of an easy fix.  See the other message.)

However, if xapian is superior, we might want to support xapian
_instead of_ sqlite3.

I know nothing about xapian, though I surmise it is a database
package.  Thus, I have no opinion about that choice.  Probably some of
us know pertinent things and could post about whether xapian has
advantages.

One drawback of sqlite3 is that it dynamically loads extensions.  If
xapian does NOT dynamically load extensions -- or at least offers a
mode of use which does not dynamically load extensions -- that is a
significant advantage, for us.

If xapian is GPL-covered, promoting it is desirable.

Are there any other alternatives that might be preferable to sqlite3?


We should have taken _more time_ to consider what we were going to do
in this area, before doing anything.  There was no hurry so we should
not have rushed this.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)