Re: What is GNU ELPA?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden>,  address@hidden,
>   address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden,
>   address@hidden,  address@hidden
> Date: Sat, 16 May 2020 08:48:55 -0400
> 
> > As I understand it, space is the only reason that we don't
> > put all those packages in the core.
> 
> AFAIK space was definitely not the motivation

It says "space etc.", so not just space.

> The reasons were rather to:
> - Decouple those packages from Emacs's release cycle.

That'd fall under the "etc." part in my book, because the package
still logically is part of Emacs, just being released separately.

> - Avoid the never ending problems with packages that are in emacs.git
>   but whose "upstream" is elsewhere, where the two code bases require
>   extra efforts to keep them in sync (enough efforts that sometimes this
>   sync is lost, as is the case for CEDET IIRC).

For that, we could use the same technique as we use in ELPA for
"external" packages, could we not?

> - More generally give more freedom to the authors (many authors are
>   *not* interested in having their code in emacs.git because of the
>   extra constraints that it implies).
> 
> The last two problems *also* affect GNU ELPA, ironically, tho to
> a lesser extent.

I'm sorry to say, but I feel we are trying to retroactively invent
reasons to justify the actual situation and the goals that got shifted
from their original.  As the description of ELPA shows, the original
goal was to have an extension of Emacs that is separate for minor
technical reasons.