How to do a beta release on ELPA?

[Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>]

Hi all,

we've worked hard lately to make GNU AUCTeX use lexical-binding.  That
was quite some work with certain deeper and also some incompatible
changes which could bite some users, especially those who have written
custom style files.  I think it's all for the better but there are
chances that some users might need to do some manual tweaking to their
customization and styles when upgrading.

We just made a last tarball release 12.3 and ELPA release 12.3.1 without
lexical-binding, and now our master branch contains the relevant
lexical-binding changes.

I don't think there are too many people running straight from our master
branch, so I guess we should do a new ELPA release pretty soon to get
more testing.  But is there a way to release a new ELPA version just for
the adventurous?

I currently see only these two options:

1) Make a separate auctex-beta package which would just be the same as
   the normal one except with a more recent release.

2) Just do a normal ELPA release and if things break for some users tell
   them how to pin auctex to version 12.3.1 for the time needed to fix
   their issues.

With option 1), I eschew the amount of maintenance required.  And what
should packages do that depend on auctex?  Now they need to depend on
auctex or auctex-beta.  Oh, and we'd need to declare both of them as
being incompatible to each other.  And the beta package should just be a
very temporary thingy, nothing that's still available and falsely
attracting users in a year from now...

With option 2), I guess it could harm users who don't know how to reach
out for help.

Are there any other (preferably better!) options?

Bye,
Tassilo