Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Bastien Guerry]

We plan to require Emacs 24.3 for next Org versions.

Is there a way to know if many users will be excluded from the
next Org versions (apart from asking this list)?

Are there some stats from various ELPA repositories on what
Emacs version is required?

I'm all for this move, but want to make sure we don't prevent
too many users from using the latest Org.

See http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/99520 for the
related discussion.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Emacs 23 was current just a few years ago.  Please don't rush to
desupport it.  It is ok of the Org mode included in the current Emacs
does not work in any other version, but when you distribute something
separately, you should respect people that don't update often.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Andrés Ramírez]

Hi Guys.

Just for letting You know the nokia n800 is a constrained device that
does not have enough space for installing emacs-24, but it works with
emacs-23 and with tcc for some on device development.

org-mode from 7.X (I do not remember exactly does not work with
emacs-23). 

The n800 is a device that is from 2007, there is no possibility for
this device to support emacs-24.

My setup is based on package.el, there are some packages that their
latest version still works on emacs-23. Others packages do not work.

If You guys require me to test org-mode on emacs-23.4 just let me know.

Best Regards

On Sat, 15 Aug 2015 18:01:55 -0500,
Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> 
> Emacs 23 was current just a few years ago.  Please don't rush to
> desupport it.  It is ok of the Org mode included in the current Emacs
> does not work in any other version, but when you distribute something
> separately, you should respect people that don't update often.
> 
> -- 
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
> Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.
> 
> 
> 

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Bozhidar Batsov]

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Many popular packages already require recent versions of Emacs, so this
sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Upgrading Emacs is trivial on all platforms and we need to drive forward
progress. If someone doesn't want to update Emacs they'll probably be fine
with
using an older version of org as well.

On 16 August 2015 at 02:01, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> Emacs 23 was current just a few years ago.  Please don't rush to
> desupport it.  It is ok of the Org mode included in the current Emacs
> does not work in any other version, but when you distribute something
> separately, you should respect people that don't update often.
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
> Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.
>
>
>

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Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Achim Gratz]

Richard Stallman writes:
> Emacs 23 was current just a few years ago.  Please don't rush to
> desupport it.

It's not so much that we want to desupport it, we really want and need
to use some of the new features in Emacs24, namely lexical bindings.

> It is ok of the Org mode included in the current Emacs
> does not work in any other version, but when you distribute something
> separately, you should respect people that don't update often.

We don't have the developer resources to develop two different
distributions in parallel, just as Emacs doesn't seem to have the
developer resources to provide API compatibility between releases.  I
can't just say something like (require emacs23-compat), develop to the
Emacs 23 API and have Emacsen younger than that do the right thing for
my package.  I haven't done a formal survey, but I know of several
packages on ELPA that have already cut off Emacs 23.

Now, even if we did keep an Emacs 23 compatible Org around (most likely
being feature frozen and only getting critical bugfixes) we'd still have
to solve the problem that Emacs' package manager currently can't serve
different packages for different versions of Emacs.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

Factory and User Sound Singles for Waldorf Blofeld:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSounds

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Achim Gratz]

Bozhidar Batsov writes:
> Upgrading Emacs is trivial on all platforms and we need to drive
> forward progress. If someone doesn't want to update Emacs they'll
> probably be fine with using an older version of org as well.

Trivial or not, in some environments changing something like Emacs to a
new version still plays out on the scale of several years, not months;
and both the users and the system administrators can't do much about it.
On the other hand they have control over their personal .emacs.d or
site-lisp.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

Factory and User Sound Singles for Waldorf rackAttack:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSounds

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Artur Malabarba]

> Now, even if we did keep an Emacs 23 compatible Org around (most likely
> being feature frozen and only getting critical bugfixes) we'd still have
> to solve the problem that Emacs' package manager currently can't serve
> different packages for different versions of Emacs.

Emacs 23 didn't come with package.el, which means you're targetting
people who have manually added package.el to their system. I think
it's safe to assume that this group of people is capable of manually
downloading and setting up your compatibility org version. Just make
sure it's very visible and easy to find when searched for.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > It's not so much that we want to desupport it, we really want and need
  > to use some of the new features in Emacs24, namely lexical bindings.

How do you plan to use them
that won't work in pre-lexical-binding Emacs?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  >   I haven't done a formal survey, but I know of several
  > packages on ELPA that have already cut off Emacs 23.

I am glad you told us about this.  Things are drifting in a direction
that will tend to cause problems.

Not knowing which packages those are, I can't tell whether this is a
real problem.  Perhaps they are not widely used, or not crucial to
users; perhaps the Emacs 23 users won't be unhappy that those don't
run.  In other words, perhaps the problem in its current small state
is not significant in practice.  (Though we have not ascertained
that.)

But that doesn't mean we should let this drift continue, because when
it comes to packages such as Org that many people use, it certainly
will become significant in practice.

"Other people have done it" does not mean it is a good policy.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Emacs 23 didn't come with package.el, which means you're targetting
  > people who have manually added package.el to their system.

Emacs packages such as Org mode existed and were distributed separately 
since long before ELPA.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[David Kastrup]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > Emacs 23 didn't come with package.el, which means you're targetting
>   > people who have manually added package.el to their system.
>
> Emacs packages such as Org mode existed and were distributed
> separately since long before ELPA.

But we are not talking about obliterating older downloadable copies of
Org mode from all servers.

I don't see a problem with the current Org update.  Of course, as the
package manager stops being a novelty, upstream package management will
become an issue.

Ideally, the package versions offered by a package manager will work
with the version of Emacs running the package manager.  Either we have
one repository per Emacs version, or smarter version management for one
repository serving more than one Emacsen.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Artur Malabarba]

>   > Emacs 23 didn't come with package.el, which means you're targetting
>   > people who have manually added package.el to their system.
>
> Emacs packages such as Org mode existed and were distributed separately
> since long before ELPA.

Yes, I was specifically replying to a comment about installation via
the package manager.

Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Bastien Guerry writes:

 > Is there a way to know if many users will be excluded from the
 > next Org versions (apart from asking this list)?

Probably not.  However, I've seen results for two surveys of users of
Emacsen at two different corporations (over 200 responses each, I'm
not allowed to say what the companies are) in about 2002 and 2006.
They showed that the majority of users were using Emacsen over 5 years
old in both, and a significant fraction (~5% and ~10%) were using
Emacsen over 10 years old.

 > I'm all for this move, but want to make sure we don't prevent
 > too many users from using the latest Org.

I can say this much about those surveys: those users are (as Achim
points out in a post parallel to this one) in environments where they
need approval from "corporate IT" to use any distribution, and they
probably can't use org from ELPA at work anyway.  So those results may
not be truly relevant to your decision.  Still, you're probably
looking at a majority of Emacs users in those environments who would
be cut off from even the option of applying to corporate IT for
approval of modern org-mode by a decision to require 24.3.

Steve

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > >   > Emacs 23 didn't come with package.el, which means you're targetting
  > >   > people who have manually added package.el to their system.
  > >
  > > Emacs packages such as Org mode existed and were distributed separately
  > > since long before ELPA.

  > Yes, I was specifically replying to a comment about installation via
  > the package manager.

Indeed, it would not be straightforward to install the newest Org mode
in Emacs 23 via the package manager.  But they could install it from a
release, the way they generally did in Emacs 23.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Achim Gratz]

Artur Malabarba writes:
>> Now, even if we did keep an Emacs 23 compatible Org around (most likely
>> being feature frozen and only getting critical bugfixes) we'd still have
>> to solve the problem that Emacs' package manager currently can't serve
>> different packages for different versions of Emacs.
>
> Emacs 23 didn't come with package.el, which means you're targetting
> people who have manually added package.el to their system. I think
> it's safe to assume that this group of people is capable of manually
> downloading and setting up your compatibility org version. Just make
> sure it's very visible and easy to find when searched for.

For someone savvy enough wanting to install a newer Org on Emacs 23 I
expect a good proportion to recognize also that installing package
manager for Emacs 23 first is a good way to also update the other eLisp
they have on their systems.  However, that's not the issue I was
commenting about.

The issue, which admittedly doesn't really have much to do with Org and
was meant as a side remark, still stands that package manager can't
install different packages or package versions for different Emacs
versions.  If you wanted to do that, you'd need to create an ELPA
archive for each version of Emacs and teach people to use the right one
for the version they currently use.  That strikes me as odd.

At least the last part could be solved by optionally having a
version-specific sub-structure in ELPA and have Emacs' package manager
look there first.  I tend to the idea that each such sub-structure
should be a complete package archive, based on the assumption that it
would be served from a system that knows about (hard-)links or virtual
directories (that is the webserver rewrites the request to use some
other directory if it can't find it in the one you were looking).


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

Factory and User Sound Singles for Waldorf rackAttack:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSounds

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > The issue, which admittedly doesn't really have much to do with Org and
  > was meant as a side remark, still stands that package manager can't
  > install different packages or package versions for different Emacs
  > versions.  If you wanted to do that, you'd need to create an ELPA
  > archive for each version of Emacs and teach people to use the right one
  > for the version they currently use.  That strikes me as odd.

An Org mode developer said they don't have the manpower to maintain
parallel versions of Org mode for different Emacs versions.  Thus,
there is no need in this context to discuss how the package system
could handle parallel versions of Org mode.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Require Emacs >=24.3 for next Org versions?

[Bastien]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

My current plan is to develop the Org 8.x series so that it is
compatible with Emacs 23+ and start requiring Emacs 24.3+ from
Org 9.0.

We don't have the manpower to support Emacs 23 indefinitely but
we certainly should put efforts on making the Emacs-23-compatible
version as good as possible.  Since the last major Org version is
8.3, this leaves room for new features (in 8.4, 8.5, etc.) that
Emacs-23 users will enjoy.