Re: Why not include all ELPA packages in an Emacs release?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>,
>   jb@jeremybryant.net,  emacs-devel@gnu.org,  monnier@iro.umontreal.ca,
>   philipk@posteo.net
> Date: Wed, 29 May 2024 22:35:36 +0200
> 
> Arash Esbati <arash@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > If Emacs considers in-buffer completion an important feature, then I'd
> > say corfu and cape are must.  vertico and marginalia are also must in
> > my book since they offer a better experience with vertical minibuffer
> > completion.
> 
> Nice completion UIs are certainly a very important feature and I have
> the same preferences as you.  But I don't see a reason why some specific
> one has to be in core.  It has long been ivy and company, now it's
> vertico and corfu, and in 2 years the hottest bets might be something
> else.

These are valid concerns, thanks.  However, if we consider these
features important enough and add them to core, we take the
responsibility to keep them alive for years to come, even if their
original developers move on.

> I mean, it's easy to put things into core but hardly possible to remove
> them again without annoying someone.

True.  Which is why we should consider the cost of maintaining those
as part of the decision-making.

> FWIW, I'd rather move more stuff from core to ELPA and add mechanics to
> install from ELPA easily.

No one really disagrees.  The problem is how to do that in a way that
doesn't disrupt the users and the Emacs development procedures.  See
the past discussions and the conclusions we have reached (although TBH
not all of the conclusions are agreed-upon by all of us).

> > And while we're at it: There are sometimes requests for adding AUCTeX
> > to core.  Do you have an opinion about that?
> 
> One practical question is what happens with stock tex-mode.el then.
> Right now, when you install AUCTeX, it'll take over.  That would annoy
> tex-mode users, I guess.

We don't have to make AUCTeX the default if we include it.  It could
start being optional, like the various *-ts-mode's are.