Re: Why are so many great packages not trying to get included in GNU Emacs?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:

>> It doesn't seem much more random to say "we're adding your repo URL to
>> our list of approved ELPA pull-sources" than to say "you're now free to
>> push whatever you like", does it? An ELPA administrator still has to
>> make that explicit decision to add the URL, so there's still a level of
>> approval?
>
> I think there's a fairly large difference:
>
> - When we pull from an external repository, every person who has write
>   access to that repository is now in charge of thinking "does this fit
>   the copyright requirements?", whereas only the original official
>   maintainer has been explicitly informed about those requirements.
> - The set of such people can be changed completely outside of our control,
>   whereas we always make sure that people have signed the proper
>   copyright paperwork before they get push access.
> - After the initial setup, everything else would be transparent, so it'd
>   be easy for the developers to forget or be unaware that it's published
>   in GNU ELPA.
>   The mindset on github is one that doesn't encourage careful
>   consideration of licensing and authorship but instead encourages
>   "happy sharing" [ Paradoxically, the FSF's insistence on tracking
>   copyright assignments makes this very problematic (even tho, "happy
>   sharing" is really what we all want to do) unless it's between people
>   who we know have signed the copyright paperwork.  ]
>   So psychologically, I think there is a big difference between
>   "everything takes place on github" and "an explicit step is needed
>   every time you want to get the code to the gnu.org side".

Okay, that makes sense.

Thanks,
Eric