Re: Adding use-package to core

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>
> Cc: spwhitton@spwhitton.name,  luangruo@yahoo.com,  emacs-devel@gnu.org,
>   xenodasein@tutanota.de
> Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2022 10:09:37 +0000
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> 2. Are we talking about GNU ELPA or both NonGNU ELPA and GNU ELPA.
> >
> > GNU ELPA only.
> 
> OK, but then again, what to do about Magit being on NonGNU ELPA.

AFAIU, an effort to collect all the assignments for Magit is under
way, with the purpose of adding Magit to ELPA and/or Emacs.

> > We could do that, but until we have a reliable way of including ELPA
> > packages in a release (which should include the solution for how to
> > upgrade such packages after the released Emacs is installed on the
> > user's machine), doing these secondary jobs is IMO just a waste of
> > time and energy.  For example, if the solutions are far away in the
> > future, the list of contenders you collect now will be outdated by
> > then, and will need to be redone anew.
> >
> > The issues we are touching here were all discussed in the past, and
> > the difficulties that need to be resolved were described and also
> > discussed.  It's nothing new, and I don't think anything's changed
> > since those discussions, we are still where we were back then wrt our
> > ability to include ELPA packages.
> 
> What exactly is the complication here?  Wouldn't it be possible to have
> a "contrib"/"elpa"/... directory under lisp with ELPA packages that are
> prepared before packaging?  Or should these packages be moved into the
> core?  Would using fancy tricks like git worktrees, as done by
> elpa-admin be a possible approach to tackle the issue?

The basic issue is: when I install a new Emacs version, and later want
to upgrade to a newer version of a package maintained on ELPA, how
does Emacs do that, and what are user-level implications, given the
existing methods of installing Emacs, both by building it locally and
installing a distro?

Again, the details of this were described and discussed, so I suggest
to look up those past discussions and read there.