Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: bzg@gnu.org, yantar92@gmail.com, theophilusx@gmail.com, 
> emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 18:49:53 +0000
> 
> I was looking into the idea that we can get more help from Emacs
> contributors if we switch the format back from .org to .texi.

I'd welcome such a change, FWIW.

> Having said that, RMS officially asked Org team to work towards allowing
> Org to become the new GNU documentation standard.
> https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87bkqx4jyg.fsf@localhost/
> So, the above idea was rather theoretical. Unless we disregard RMS
> request, Org manual will be a good reference template to explore
> real-life caveats of using .org as the true documentation source.

I don't know why Richard made that request.  From my POV, switching
from Texinfo to _any_ significantly different markup has the
significant disadvantage that people who routinely improve our manuals
will have to learn a new language, and that will likely lower their
motivation.

For better and for worse, Texinfo is our documentation system.  It is
a good system, and is actively developed (version 7.1 will be released
soon), so abandoning it for something that is less familiar to those
who take care of the documentation is a net loss, IMO.  We have enough
real problems on our hands to afford inventing new ones.