Re: [Emacs-diffs] feature/integrated-elpa 4f6df43 15/23: README added

[John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>]

>>>>> "PL" == Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:

PL> I'm wondering on what basis we would make the distinction between core and
PL> tarball. Potential usefulness, longevity, quality etc?

This point has yet to be determined. I think that for now it will remain a
maintainer decision, based on feedback from the developers here. I don't think
it's useful to define a "general principle" to make the decision for us, yet.
There aren't that many packages signed over to the FSF, after all.

PL> I'm not asking because I expect to have completely clear criteria at this
PL> stage, but because I want to know that there are some criteria. If there
PL> are not, then we may be making an unnecessary distinction.

Ok, here's my thinking on what should move to ELPA tarball:

  1. Package is self-contained (that is, no packages in Emacs depend on it).
  2. Package is currently under development by an outside team.
  3. Package regularly presents us with version updates.

Org-mode fits this description to a T, and so it would move to tarball ELPA.
This should in no way be seen as a "downgrading" of the importance or role of
Org-mode within Emacs. It is solely to facilitate easier integrate of new
changes from the Org-mode team, and to relieve Emacs.git from having to track
changes in its files.

Gnus and CEDET are other prime candidates for tarball ELPA.

Calc and Eshell almost fit this description, except they are both very stable
now, so there's not much to be gained from moving them.

stream.el is something that I think would be a candidate for "core ELPA": It
fits the above criteria, but adds a fourth:

  4. We'd like for other core Emacs packages to be able to use it.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2