Re: elpa.gnu.org repository sync with Emacs

[Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> 1) add elpa/ directory to main Emacs repo (as a branch or
> subdirectory; my vote is for a subdirectory that's not bundled or
> compiled because it will get branched together with Emacs itself).
> Make it available to a dev checkout of Emacs as a file:/// URL (so it
> can be tested easily).

I think it makes more sense to add elpa/ as a branch.  Then we can just
`bzr merge' from savannah into the bzr repository used for elpa.gnu.org,
in order to grab the changes made by Emacs devs.  (I don't think you can
`bzr merge' a subdirectory, or can you?)

First, we should make a change to the elpa.gnu.org repository:
currently, the .tar packages live in the repositories as tarballs.  We
should instead leave them as untarred directories, and put the script on
elpa.gnu.org in charge of tarring them up after `bzr export'.  That way,
changes made to the contents of packages can be viewed with bzr diff.

Still unresolved is the problem of which packages should be considered
"OK" to tweak, and which should not.  I don't relish the idea of having
to do a big merge every time a package is released upstream.  I think we
should have a clear policy that only packages that are developed
principally inside the package bzr repository, or whose maintainer is
explicitly in charge of merging, should be hacked on.