From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: ELPA policy Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2015 19:49:42 +0200 Message-ID: <83k2psnzyh.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87ziyuaqhl.fsf@petton.fr> <87fv0labbf.fsf@web.de> <87y4eda0kl.fsf@petton.fr> <22074.42230.156669.584780@retriever.mtv.corp.google.com> <87ziyoxvdp.fsf@Rainer.invalid> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1447005008 22323 80.91.229.3 (8 Nov 2015 17:50:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 17:50:08 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Achim Gratz Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Nov 08 18:49:59 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvU6I-0001Gm-Gm for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 18:49:58 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:48297 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvU6H-0006PX-QO for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 12:49:57 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:59444) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvU6D-0006PR-MM for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 12:49:54 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvU68-0000fF-LR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 12:49:53 -0500 Original-Received: from mtaout22.012.net.il ([80.179.55.172]:43295) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvU68-0000f2-De for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 12:49:48 -0500 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout22.012.net.il by a-mtaout22.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NXI00000C42L300@a-mtaout22.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 19:49:45 +0200 (IST) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([84.94.185.246]) by a-mtaout22.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NXI000W6C6XJ520@a-mtaout22.012.net.il>; Sun, 08 Nov 2015 19:49:45 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: <87ziyoxvdp.fsf@Rainer.invalid> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.172 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:193629 Archived-At: > From: Achim Gratz > Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2015 18:18:26 +0100 > > I posit that the only thing that actually matters for something to be > considered "core" is that authors of other packages can rely on the > (stable) API provided by these packages to be available in an Emacs as > it gets distributed and no installation of further packages or software > is necessary, neither by the sysadmin nor the user. If so, instead of > keeping the "core" sources all in Emacs, they could equally well be > living in ELPA and be pre-installed into the distribution, or installed > into the Emacs build tree as submodules or subtrees. IMO, no serious move such as this one should be argued for, let alone attempted, without some minimal analysis of advantages and disadvantages. In particular, such an analysis cannot be limited to the POV of maintainers of packages tat are currently not bundled, it must first and foremost look at this from the POV of the Emacs maintenance, definitely if the argument is to leave in the Emacs repository only what's needed for bootstrap. And any change in maintenance routine, small or large, should have enough advantages to justify the energy that will certainly go into the move itself and into cleaning up the resulting fallout. I don't see how we can seriously discuss such suggestions when they are not accompanied by anything like the analysis they need. > The most radical (and likely most controversial) thing to do would > be to move everything to ELPA that isn't needed to bootstrap Emacs. Most such packages don't have any active maintainers, i.e. they are maintained by the "FSF", which means us the core developers. IMO, it makes very little sense to spread the stuff we maintain between 2 separate repositories, because all this does is add overhead and complexity without any clear benefits that I could see. Another important aspect that this suggestion seems to overlook is that Emacs packages rely on others not only via APIs, but also by inheritance, like all the modes that derive from Text mode etc. > Doing this would need some as of yet non-existing infrastructure to get > the chosen ELPA version of each package built into the distribution, and > facilities for sysadmins and users to update (but not disable) the > "core" packages at the system level or in their private directories. Yes, and the effort this will require is squarely in the disadvantages camp. Let me turn the table and ask: Are there any _advantages_ in moving stuff like Dired, CC Mode, Shell Mode, Speedbar, and ps-print, to name just a random few?