Re: On Contributing To Emacs

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com>
> Cc: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 21:59:17 +0800
> 
> 1. There was a complaint:
> 
> >> - Development velocity is glacial. With releases around once per year
> >> and there being no easily accessible distribution mechanism for
> >> development updates, high-velocity projects or projects that must adapt
> >> to a changing ecosystem (straight.el satisfies both of those criteria)
> >> simply do not have a place in Emacs core as it exists today.
> 
> 2. The answer to it was that core packages can be distributed through ELPA
>    to provide updates between Emacs releases.
> 
> 3. I tried to simulate a newcomer aiming to contribute a new built-in
>    package to Emacs, but willing to update the contribution frequently.
> 
>    I opened CONTRIBUTE file and tried to search useful information with
>    the above setup in mind.
> 
> 4. I did not find anything useful from a first glance (from folded
>    headlines)

If this is the purpose, we could say something like

  If you would like to contribute a stand-alone package, consider
  submitting it to ELPA, not to Emacs.

Would that be enough?

> 6. ELPA section is very confusing with this mindset (and in general as
>    well).

I find nothing confusing there.  All it says is that the Emacs
repository doesn't include ELPA, which is a separate repository with
its own README file.

IOW, all it wants is to prevent people from mistakenly thinking
CONTRIBUTE and emacs.git in general cover ELPA.