Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>> I'm thinking of things like the code that handles `:doc` or `:make`.
>>> These don't care about Git.
>> For something like :make to work, we would also require :renames, right?
>
> No, it's done before renames.
>
>> But if that is added, then the version control could break.
>
> In the part of `elpa-admin.el` designed for "install from Git"
> (i.e. the part that matches package+vc's goal), `:rename` is not taken
> into account.  I don't think we can reasonably do so, as you point out,
> so I think `:renames` should be labeled as something we can't support
> (and eventually deprecated for that reason).

OK, so I won't add support for that right now.

>> How does this look like:
>
> I'm a bit confused: it seems to do for `:core` what I expected to happen
> for packages with a nil `:url` (and it doesn't drop `:core` packages,
> like I'd expect).

That was my mistake, I misremembered that core packages aren't mirrored
in their own branches in elpa.git.  I've removed it here: