I'm not familiar with some of those packages, but I don't see anything concerning about them either. I guess you know that the author of most of those packages is reliable, which is good enough for me.
>
>>>> >> Hope there are no objections to these additions.
>>>> > What are the criteria for objections in this case?
>>>> If someone thinks that there are technical issues with the package
>>> What kind of technical issues would be relevant in these cases?
>>
>> E.g. if one of those packages depends on a package which is not in
>> (Non)GNU ELPA?
Yes, or something like deprecated dependencies that can be fixed, in
case I missed something.
>
>>> there is a better alternative to some package I propose that we
>>> should add instead of what I suggested to avoid duplication.
>>
>> This last criterion I don't think I understand. I was under the
>> impression that we are not supposed to limit admission of packages
>> just because there are alternatives to what they do.
>>
>> For example, symbol-overlay seems to do what hi-lock-mode does. But
>> my understanding was that this fact shouldn't preclude symbol-overlay
>> from being admitted. Now you seem to be saying that we shouldn't add
>> such packages?
>>
>> Bottom line: I'm still confused.
To my knowledge these aren't fixed rules, and as I say "avoid" doesn't
mean prevent by all means. There are already examples like project and
projectile that are pretty similar. In this case it seems to me that
symbol-overlay is sufficiently different from hi-lock-mode to make the
addition worthwhile, but of course that is exactly the point I wanted to
discuss.
The general intention is to allow for comments before adding new
packages.