Re: decision on moving core packages to ELPA; also move to obsolete?

[Stefan Monnier]

> Are you talking about something that already works, or about something
> that _could_ work, after some changes?

The sysadmin scenario I described is one that has worked pretty much
from the beginning of package.el.

> If the former, then where's the code to support it?

`package-activate` is the function which activates the
"preferred" version of a package among those that have been found.

>> > And what about the relation between the version in ELPA and the
>> > branches/versions of Emacs in the Emacs repository?  IOW, how will a
>> > package that needs Emacs version N+1 work with Emacs version N?
>> 
>> What about it?  The packages bundled with Emacs-N+1 would *not* be in
>> the `package-directory-list` of Emacs-N (and vice-versa), so there'd be
>> no particular issue at stake here.
> That won't fly, because usually some previous version of that same
> package did work with Emacs-N.

I don't see how this statement relates to what I said or to what you had
said before.

> And since packages don't usually have a stable branch and
> a development branch, how to bundle them and how to upgrade them later
> becomes a mess.

That's a very vague statement, so I'm not sure what to do here.

> Some of that was discussed in this thread, for example:
>
>   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2019-11/msg01000.html

This thread talks about issues that happen if you install a package
Foo-N.M from an Emacs session where Foo-P.Q is in active use.
This applies to bundled and unbundled packages equally and is completely
orthogonal to the discussion at hand.
[ Yes, the discussion was around Org, because it's a large and popular
  package, so it's one where the problem appeared with more frequency,
  and it also happens to be distributed with Emacs, but that's just an
  accidental aspect: the same problem affected (and to some extent
  still affects) other non-bundled packages.  ]

> how can we ever get this stuff to maturity if we cannot test-drive it
> until it is too late?

I guess at this point the question for me is: are you interested in
finding a positive answer to the question?


        Stefan