bug#19296: [PATCH] Package archives now have priorities.

[Jorgen Schaefer <forcer@forcix.cx>]

On Mon, 08 Dec 2014 10:42:49 -0500
Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

> > I don't think there is a good solution for that.
> 
> But that is the problem that causes most harm since people get stuck
> with an old version.

I don't think this is the problem that causes most harm. For people to
be stuck with an old version, the package needs to be removed from
MELPA, else the version from MELPA will always be "the newest".

The problem that I am trying to solve is that it is currently
meaningless to have e.g. both MELPA and MELPA Stable in the archive
list, because all packages in MELPA Stable are also available from
MELPA, so if you have both in your archive list, you will always get
the MELPA ones, never the MELPA Stable ones. But you do want MELPA in
the archive list, because MELPA Stable only has about a third of the
packages of MELPA.

> BTW, there's yet another interesting situation to consider (which
> we've had once in GNU ELPA for AucTeX):
> - V2 is in R2, user installs it.
> - Some problem is found in V2
> - R2 reverts to V1
> - User is never told that reverting to V1 is the recommended course
> of action

In other package archives, this is a problem of the person doing the
releases, not the archive. They should do another release V3 that is
equivalent to V1, not simply "revoke" an existing release.

> Now that I think about it, maybe a better solution

Ok, there are a number of possible approaches, all hypothetical. Let's
be more concrete.

What requirements would a patch need to fulfill that you deem it
acceptable to be applied to the Emacs repository that solves my
original problem (i.e. only install packages from a given repository if
the package is not available from other repositories)?

Regards,
Jorgen