Re: [O] org mode moves to GNU emacs core

[qTim Cross]

Just to throw my 2 cents in.

While I can understand the benefits of being able to easily install the
latest org package via elpa, I think there are some significant benefits
to org being a part of core Emacs.

I currently find three issues with the current situation which may be
somewhat resolved if org was part of core emacs.

1. Problems with mixed versions. Currently, Emacs has org 8.x included
in the distribution. This is despite 9.x being out before the release of
25.2. Something needs to be done to improve coordination and perhaps if
it was part of the core, this would be more likely. At any rate, the
current situation means you need to be very careful to ensure no org
feature is loaded before the ELPA package is loaded or you will get odd
behaviour and the symbol's value is void errors. 

2. If you just want to load the ELPA version of org (not
org-plus-contrib) it can be a real pain. You have to play around with
package lists to ensure you actually get the right one. This can be a
real hassle if you also use the use-package package as you will often
get the older version bundled with Emacs if you don't have your package
lists in the right order.

3. I would really like to see two completely separate packages rather
than having org and org-plus-contrib. Currently, if you have packages
which have org as a dependency and you have loaded org-plus-contrib
rather than just org, you will end up with both. Not a big issue, unless
your on a slow link as now you will download updates for both org and
org-plus-contrib. (there is no 'cleverness' with ELPA dependency
specifications - you cannot specify alternative dependencies).

A lot will depend on when org becomes part f core. The trick will be to
do it once development of org slows down. I've been using org for a long
time now and have noticed that the rate of new features being added has
slowed down. Much of the changes now is about improvement and refinement
of the code base. I would imagine that at some point, things will become
even more stable with fewer releases. This would be the point at which
it would make sense to bring into core.

The other advantage of being part of core is that updates and changes to
Emacs will be integrated into org much better. We won't see situations
where new versions of Emacs require a rush to update org. for the end
user, this should create a much more stable org environment.

Then of course, there will always be the option to run org straight from
the git repository for those who really want the latest version. I find
that once you have the path added to load-path, running from the git
repo is not much more effort than installing the latest ELPA package. 


Uwe Brauer writes:

>>>> "Bastien" == Bastien  <address@hidden> writes:
>
>     > Hi Uwe,
>     > Uwe Brauer <address@hidden> writes:
>
>     >> I am not sure whether I understand that discussion in emacs dev
>     >> correctly. Will orgmode be moved into the GNU emacs try as it was done
>     >> with gnus?
>
>     > for the record, I would be in favor of this.  Why?
>
>     > - Less installation headaches
>     > - Less maintainance and backward-compatibility headaches
>     > - Possibility of having etc/TODO in Emacs using org-mode
>     > - Attracting Org developers/contributors to Emacs repo
>
>     > As a maintainer, I don't see any advantage of having Org
>     > maintained as an ELPA package.
>
> But the release cycles are very different, so in order to have always
> the latest stable org package, I need to compile and install the whole
> GNU emacs beast. I thought the whole idea of a package system is to
> avoid this headache. 


-- 
Tim Cross