Re: Adding advisory notification for non-ELPA package.el downloads

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> ELPA managers, does the act of installing directly into ELPA give us
> an opportunity to make sure something is being handled right?

I think the difference is pretty significant, yes.
If we pull from other repositories:
- maintainers of the package will not be reminded that the package is
  also in GNU ELPA (and should hence adhere to a copyright assignment
  policy).

- While the repository may be under the sole control of the package
  maintainer when the package is added to GNU ELPA, that can and will
  evolve over time, completely outside of our control.

- There is no easy way for us (Emacs maintainers) to install fixes to
  adapt to changes in Emacs.  More specifically, it needs to be done by
  hand package-by-package, by submitting a patch and hoping the upstream
  maintainer is still listening.

- Handling old unmaintained packages is more trouble.

- We won't get elpa-diffs email, where we have the opportunity to give
  advice on coding style and have a minimum amount of review of the code
  we end up distributing.

Basically it would turn GNU ELPA into a pure distribution site, with
very little control over what we distribute, including the copyright
status of what we distribute.

The only real difference with MELPA would be that we could check that
each file comes with the proper GPLv3+ blurb.  Not sure if it would be
worth the trouble.


        Stefan