Re: CVS is the `released version'

[Trent Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> In that case, I think the real proposal is not "add a package system
> to Emacs" but rather "set up a standard site for Emacs add-ons".

Agreed.

> If the add-ons are put in such a web site, finding and installing them
> would be much easier.  Maybe it is worth doing that, though calling it
> a "package system" seems like hype.
>
> But there are two important non-technical problems with this approach.
>
> 1. It could reduce the incentive for people to assign copyright on
> their code.
>
> 2. It would mean that Emacs refers people very strongly to a site
> that isn't run by the GNU Project.  I don't know what their policies
> are.  But even if they are good, now, we have no way to assure that
> remains so.
>
> These problems would be eliminated if we put the package repository on
> gnu.org and limit it to packages that are copyright FSF.

Would it be acceptable to have two repositories "main" and "non-fsf",
both hosted on gnu.org, and only have the former enabled by default?
That is, packages in "non-fsf" would not be listed or installable
unless the user explicitly added something like this to their .emacs:

    (add-to-list 'package-repositories "http://elpa.gnu.org/non-fsf")

That way Free software packages that are NOT assigned to the FSF (such
as paredit, which is declares itself to be in the Public Domain), can
still be installed easily by users via the package.el framework, but
only after the user explicitly says "please enable installation of
Free, but non-FSF packages".  It would also make it easy to move a
package into "main" once the paperwork was done by simply changing a
few headers -- the rest of the package.el integration would already
have been done and tested in the "non-fsf" repository.
-- 
Trent Buck