Re: non-gnu elpa issue tracking

[Stefan Kangas]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> non-GNU ELPA is more similar to a fork.

I believe this is a misconception that risks damaging the reputation and
success of NonGNU ELPA.  According to Wikipedia, "a project fork happens
when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and
start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate
piece of software".  This is not what NonGNU ELPA is about.

Yes, NonGNU ELPA will have support for maintaining forks (as does GNU
ELPA, MELPA, Marmalade, etc.).  Richard has pointed out that it is
important that we have such support in case it is necessary.  But in my
view this is still largely hypothetical and would in any case be applied
only in exceptional cases.

For NonGNU ELPA, we will seek to cooperate with existing package
maintainers, that will ideally for the most part maintain their packages
as they have done up until their inclusion in the archive.  My hope
would be that we could also contribute back some of our knowledge and
help improve the package from a technical (and sometimes ethical)
standpoint.

> As I said, hypothethical talk is not useful. Bring a package and ask
> if such can be included. Let us see, that we do not create problems
> out of nothing.

Indeed.