Re: PL support

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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  > I have nothing against MELPA-Libre, whether it exists or will be
  > created at some future point, as long as it is not GNU ELPA, i.e. as
  > long as it is not perceived as part of the GNU Emacs project.  If it
  > wants to be part of the Emacs project, and the packages are supposed
  > to be movable between Emacs and MELPA-Libre, I will insist of applying
  > the same rules and basic requirements to it that we apply to code in
  > Emacs.

That is how it must be.

People have suggested the idea of a MELPA-Libre.  People have
suggested the idea of including some packages in GNU ELPA without
copyright assignments.  How are these different?

The meaning of "MELPA-Libre" is not entirely precise -- there are
various possibilities for what it might be.  So the answer cannot be
precise.

I think the basic idea is that others would maintain it, not us, but
that they would commit to follow some part of our criteria for GNU
ELPA.  For instance, we presume they would reject references to nonfree
software.  Clearly they would not get copyright assignments.
I suppose they would not ask for coherence of design with Emacs.

That leaves a lot of room for variation.  We can't say whether we
would want to refer to MELPA-Libre until we know what it would be.

I find proposal of broadening GNU ELPA more plausible because (1) we
could decide how to handle it and (2) it would probably come closer to
following our standards.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)