Re: Emacs release and bundling GNU Elpa

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> step-3: we change the build scripts again so they always use those
>> packages from elpa.git.
> What are the essential reasons for having two Git repos rather than one?

If you look beyond actual repositories (which are just arbitrary
containers of data), there are more than 2 branches: there's the
emacs.git branch "master", the elpa.git branch "master", and the various
other elpa.git branches of the form "externals/<pkg>".

We want ELPA packages to live their own life, to be released at their
own pace.

> Is the vision that core Emacs could eventually be reduced to the Elisp
> engine and other infrastructure, and ELPA constitutes the features?

No.

>> I think the net result will be more bugs because of unsynchronized
>> development and less exposure of packages to people who track
>> development on master

Yes, there will be more total bugs, simply because the Emacs tarball will
be bigger.  But as long as those "bundled ELPA packages" (BEPs) don't
affect other bundled packages, it's not worse than if the user
had to install those packages by hand.

So all it takes to keep those extra bugs under control is to check the
autoloads of those BEPs.


        Stefan