Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com>]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> * Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com> [2022-09-26 09:35]:
>> I am now more concerned about Org contributors. I am not sure if we have
>> a luxury to push our contributors into GNU project by forcing them to
>> learn texinfo in addition to Org (note that I do not say that we should
>> not encourage people to contribute to GNU; just that we should not
>> discourage people from becoming Org contributors in the first
>> place).
>
> You may have contributors write it in Org and then convert Org to
> texinfo by using pandoc:
>
> pandoc -f org -t texinfo your-file.org

This is almost what we do now. Org contributors write in Org, and then we
use Org itself to convert to texinfo. Org files serve as the source
files.

What we are discussing here is whether Org should switch from Org
sources back to texinfo sources used in Emacs.

1. Switching to texinfo will improve Emacs coherence and potentially
   increase the pool of Emacs contributors familiar with texinfo (by
   pulling some of the Org contributors)
2. On the other hand, switching from Org to texinfo sources on Org side
   will require Org contributors to learn texinfo, which they do not
   really need now.
3. Yet, switching from Org to texinfo will allow Emacs contributors to
   send patches in familiar texinfo format to Org.

From the perspective of Emacs, using texinfo sources is a good thing.
From the perspective of Org, it is not that obvious.
Hence this discussion.

Note that we are now discussing this on emacs-devel and do not yet have
inputs from many Org users/contributors. However, we (Org devs) can get
inputs from Emacs devs, which is part of the information we need to see
what we want to do about Org vs. Texinfo sources.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at https://orgmode.org/.
Support Org development at https://liberapay.com/org-mode,
or support my work at https://liberapay.com/yantar92