Re: burden of maintainance

[Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>]

Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:

>>> Also considerably pay-off should be gained by reducing redundancy -
>>> just reading org-mode related comment in thread "Should we just start
>>> dumping cl-lib?"
>> Org, Gnus, AUCTeX and friends define org/gnus/TeX-* duplicates of
>> standard functions because for compatibility with older emacs versions
>> and XEmacs.
>
> Okay, understand the endeavour, but does this make sense?

Well, as long as you want to support more than just the very recent GNU
Emacs versions, I don't see a better approach.  But yes, it's
problematic.

> If the modes don't agree with core-policy, wouldn't it be better to
> reach a solution for all by discussion and decision-making?

Yes, in theory, and I think we are very careful in decision-making.
However, package developers cannot decide which kind and version of
emacs their users are using.  Most of them use the version that ships
with their distro/OS.  For example, OSX still ships emacs 22 and that
won't change because AFAIK they don't ship GPLv3 software (and therefore
they also ship an ancient version of bash).

Long story short: keeping backward compatibility is horrible, horrible,
horrible, and the world would be a better place if just everybody would
use the current emacs version. ;-)

Bye,
Tassilo