Re: What is GNU ELPA?

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 18.05.2020 06:53, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>    > > The idea that occurs to me is to make M-x load-package tell them,
>    > > occasionally.  Perhaps the first time each user runs it.
>    > > Perhaps once a year after that.
>
>    > The first time it is run sounds fine to me. "A years later" sounds more
>    > puzzling. Although it all depends on what we actually want to write there.
>
> The idea is that it would somehow record the date when it shows you
> the explanation.  For the following year, it would not show the
> explanation again.  After that, the next use would show the
> explanation again.  For the following year, it would not show the
> explanation again.

I got that.

> The idea is to remind you occasionally but avoid doing that so often
> that you would be annoyed.

Probably not too annoying, yes. But the info has to be really important 
that we'd tell it our users every year.

>    > If there was a more prominent place where Emacs introduced the users to
>    > ELPA (say, Getting Started guide, the tutorial, or the startup screen),
>    > some extra explanation could also be there.
>
> I agree, mostly.
>
> The explanation does not need to be in the startup screen, where there
> is no space for it.  Rather, the startup screen would tell you to run
> load-package, and load-package the first time would show you this
> explanation.

'M-x list-packages', you mean.

The startup screen might be too cramped, indeed. The other options could 
be better, though.