Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Ihor Radchenko]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> This may be true in general, but not for Org development.
>> People contributing to the Org manual are expected to understand Org
>> markup. So, it is Texinfo that becomes the new language to learn and
>> that creates an extra contribution barrier.
>
> If the idea is that the main contributors to the Org documentation are
> Org users, and the rest of Emacs developers don't really count for
> this purpose, then why did you count the contributions of the latter
> to begin with? they should be immaterial for you, AFAIU.

They are not immaterial. The work contributed to Org manual by Emacs
devs, even if small, is certainly appreciated. However, decision to
switch back to .texi is a major one and will affect all the
contributors, not just Emacs devs. Thus, I am trying to weight the
overall impact on the _Org_ development and maintenance.

I looked into git logs specifically to see the contribution pattern of
Emacs developers and whether it was influenced by switching from .texi
to .org. I only found that Texinfo markup-related contributions
disappeared (naturally). Other contributions remained at their levels:
typo fixes and enforcing Emacs-wide terminology and wording standards.

Neither typo fixes nor enforcing certain terminology uses are limited by
the fact that Org manual is not in .texi format. (Correct me if I am
wrong).

On the other hand, people contributing non-trivial patches for Org
manual should naturally be familiar with Org mode. So, using Org markup
should not be a handicap for them, while forcing texinfo may sometimes
be.

That's why, not disregarding Emacs dev contributions, I do not see what
positive change switching back to .texi would bring to Org development. 

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>