Re: Bundling GNU ELPA packages

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Tassilo Horn <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden
> Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 21:40:50 +0100
> 
> Ok, I can understand bundling org and gnus because they've previously
> been built-in.  But when we now start bundling even more packages, those
> are the next that can never ever be removed for that very same reason.
> If their maintainers are hit by a truck, then you and the other Emacs
> devs will have to take over.  Ditto if such a package is superseeded by
> some better alternative.

This is true to some extent, but it is not a catastrophe, and is
nowhere a kind of Catholic marriage.  Package maintainers do
disappear, and we did take over some of the packages over the years.
Eventually, if a package ceases to be maintained, it is superseded and
retired into 'obsolete' (or maybe now it will actually be removed).

> Just saying: if a package is distributed with emacs, that's a kind of
> guarantee that it'll still be there in the next decades to come.

Which I think is a Good Thing.  We don't accept packages into the
bundle easily, which guarantees that they are generally useful, and
will therefore be popular with high probability.