From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Phil Hagelberg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Package Management Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:14:41 -0700 Message-ID: <87ej589vku.fsf@hagelb.org> References: <485b0c380808011427n4d3144eey3f8daf3abac83bf4@mail.gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1217632502 31509 80.91.229.12 (1 Aug 2008 23:15:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 23:15:02 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Stephen Eilert , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Tom Tromey Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Aug 02 01:15:52 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KP3qg-0002q7-6X for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:15:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:34676 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KP3pl-0003qu-93 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:14:53 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KP3pf-0003mU-9U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:14:47 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KP3pd-0003ij-3O for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:14:46 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=58762 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KP3pd-0003iW-0c for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:14:45 -0400 Original-Received: from sd-green-bigip-177.dreamhost.com ([208.97.132.177]:59060 helo=spunkymail-a13.g.dreamhost.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KP3pc-0002jl-Oh for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:14:44 -0400 Original-Received: from dynabook (unknown [64.81.164.191]) by spunkymail-a13.g.dreamhost.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC0C2129B33; Fri, 1 Aug 2008 16:14:41 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: (Tom Tromey's message of "Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:58:59 -0600") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:101930 Archived-At: Tom Tromey writes: > Stephen> Does anyone see a major flaw in a system like that? Or is it > Stephen> a matter of "show me the code and I'll comment"? ELPA could > Stephen> be the starting point. > > There was a discussion a while ago on this list. RMS wanted to > restrict the available packages to those which had been assigned to > the FSF, but I did not agree with that. > > I would reconsider my position if the Emacs maintainers were > interested -- I think it would be useful to Emacs users if there were > a simple, standard way to install and activate packages. > > However, this would still not help you directly, because I think some > of the packages you want are not assigned. So, you would have to > solve that problem as well. As the original author of rinari, I can see a place for packages in such a system that are not part of Emacs, but still have their copyright assigned to the FSF. I have a number of elisp packages that are not candidates for inclusion in Emacs (for a number of reasons, including rapid change rate, usage of the CL library, or just limited appeal), and I would be glad to assign copyright over if it meant that they could be distributed via a built-in package manager. This would make them much, much easier to install and try out, which I think is a big win for the overall Elisp ecosystem. People are more likely to get interested and contribute if you lower the barrier to trying new things. It seems the debate so far has been held in terms of "packaging system" vs "don't make it too easy to install non-FSF-copyrighted code", but I don't think the two need to be mutually exclusive. -Phil