Re: On Contributing To Emacs

[Ihor Radchenko]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> 3. I tried to simulate a newcomer aiming to contribute a new built-in
>>    package to Emacs, but willing to update the contribution frequently.
>
> If this is the purpose, we could say something like
>
>   If you would like to contribute a stand-alone package, consider
>   submitting it to ELPA, not to Emacs.
>
> Would that be enough?

I don't think so. It's clear how to contribute a stand-alone package.
The confusion comes when someone wants to contribute a built-in package
yet widely available ahead of Emacs next release or in older Emacs.

A real example: RMS recently asked Org ML about splitting Org mode into
modules and integrating them into Emacs code proper. And we do have some
modules that could be integrated into Emacs: recent org-persist was
written with RMS request in mind; upcoming redesign of folding system
will have a universal module for text folding; some parts of Org parser
could be reused in the code (we have incremental parser equivalent to
tree-sitter implemented fully in Elisp).

However, without knowing that built-in Emacs packages can be distributed
via ELPA, the above is difficult to achieve. Org promises to support
older Emacs versions and we cannot rely on all the users using master
version of Emacs (we cannot even rely on latest Emacs release).

>> 6. ELPA section is very confusing with this mindset (and in general as
>>    well).
>
> I find nothing confusing there.  All it says is that the Emacs
> repository doesn't include ELPA, which is a separate repository with
> its own README file.
>
> IOW, all it wants is to prevent people from mistakenly thinking
> CONTRIBUTE and emacs.git in general cover ELPA.

The confusion is for the users who do not know what is GNU ELPA.

Best,
Ihor