I don't know if it's The True Probleme that, if solved will bring to emacs
a whole new batch of serious developers ready to spend their life to
improve it.
I don't think it is the case.

But I'm with you on this issue. It's would be great to leave the jokes
outside the "real" data.


2014/1/9 Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>

> This is an issue completely orthogonal to the git transition, but
> also motivated by my concern that the Emacs codebase and project raise
> needless barriers to contribution.
>
> /etc is a mess.  Over the years it's become a dumping ground for
> miscellany.  There are no fewer that four different files of
> miscellaneous jokes! And a cookie recipe! And...stuff.
>
> I think this matters because newbies who try to browse it get lost.
> Important things like the GNU Manifesto (yes, I agree it should
> be treated as important despite my well-known disagreements with it)
> are half-submerged in trivia, clutter, and files that only programs
> rather than humans care about.
>
> I propose to fix this with a reorganization.  /etc should be the data
> directory for files used by Lisp and programs in the suite.  The files
> meant exclusively for human browsing - the jokes, the cookie recipe,
> the Manifesto, the hacking guides - should move to a new directory
> designated for such content.
>
> That directory should have a proper README of it own mapping the
> content, so  newbies can quickly grasp what is there and what they
> might want to look at.
>
> Discuss.
> --
>                 <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>
>
> "The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to
> destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create...."
>         -- Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819.
>
>