Re: Emacs release and bundling GNU Elpa

[Eli Zaretskii]

Fair disclosure: I don't like this "move to ELPA" attitude.  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, and more hassle due to the need to work with more than one Git
repository, multiple development philosophies, etc.

> From: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2015 20:45:36 -0400
> Cc: emacs-devel <address@hidden>
> 
> step-1: we change the tarball-building script so as to pull some
>   packages from elpa.git and include them somewhere under the `lisp'
>   directory (for example) in the tarballs we distribute.
> step-2: we change the build scripts used from a Git checkout so they can
>   also use those packages from elpa.git.
> step-3: we change the build scripts again so they always use those
>   packages from elpa.git.
> 
> At step 3, we'd have the following novelties:
> - the end user has to checkout both emacs.git and elpa.git before she
>   can build Emacs (I suspect there will be some resistance, here).
> - packages in emacs/lisp can start to depend on packages from elpa.git.
> - we could even include preload some elpa.git packages (i.e. from loadup.el).
> 
> I'm not exactly sure we'll ever get to step 3.

At step 1, we'd have the following novelties:

 . Package developers will have to abide by some of the core's
   development methodology, like freezing development when core does
   so, perhaps using release branches, timely fixing of critical or
   blocking bugs during pretests, etc., let alone abiding by style and
   documentation guidelines.

 . Core maintainers will probably start pushing more changes to the
   packages, something I'm not sure package developers will like.
   Alternatively, we will have to develop procedures and protocols we
   don't currently have for having the package developers themselves
   expedite fixing of certain problems deemed urgent.

 . We'd need to find a way of providing ChangeLogs for the packages,
   either by merging their Git logs somehow, or by keeping their
   ChangeLogs in separate directories (which would mean each package
   will have its own directory, making load-path longer).

 . We'd need to produce NEWS entries for the packages, which will
   probably mean the packages will have to maintain their own NEWS
   files, using the same methodology and style as in core development.

 . If any of the packages have manuals, or are mentioned in the Emacs
   manuals, changes there will have to be merged as well, and we will
   have to track those updates, e.g. like we do in NEWS.

 . Our defcustom's have a ':version' tag, which is useful for quickly
   examining new options since some release -- how will this work in
   packages whose release cycle is not synchronized with Emacs?  At
   the very least, some changes to support that in
   customize-changed-options will be needed.  Similarly with
   make-obsolete: we will need at least some standardized wording for
   the WHEN argument, to avoid confusion between versions of Emacs and
   the packages.

(I'm sure I'm missing some more fun.)