Re: distributing Emacs modules as ELPA packages

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 22:38:10 +0300 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote: 

>> From: Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>
>> Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2016 13:51:05 -0400
>> 
>> 1. We have modules in 25.1.
>> 
>> 2. 25.1 is in feature freeze (so code bindings are stable).
>> 
>> 3. We discussed putting the crypto patch in an ELPA module package years
>> ago; in fact Stefan made it a requirement:

EZ> My problem is that anyone who'd want to use that package will have to
EZ> build Emacs themselves, probably from the Git checkout.  That's not
EZ> for the faint at heart.

The package will include some metadata to tell package.el that it
requires modules enabled. Then package.el can warn appropriately when
the package or things that depend on it are requested. This metadata is
not defined currently, AFAIK.

package.el also needs logic to rebuild the module from source or install
from binaries.

None of these tasks have been done before AFAIK (which is why I asked in
the first place). Someone has to be first I guess :)

I'll work on it in a scratch branch and publish it for review when it's
ready.

Ted