Re: On Contributing To Emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 01:33:57 -0800
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> >> Our core packages can be released straight from master to GNU ELPA
> >> within 24 hours.  All you need to do, once it is set up (which in itself
> >> is trivial), is to bump the version header.  This is already the case
> >> with for example flymake.el and python.el.
> >
> > Could this information be added to "GNU ELPA" section of the CONTRIBUTE
> > file? The current contents of the section is rather confusing:
> >
> > "This repository does not contain the Emacs Lisp package archive
> > (elpa.gnu.org).  See admin/notes/elpa for how to access the GNU ELPA
> > repository."
> 
> How is this?
> 
> diff --git a/CONTRIBUTE b/CONTRIBUTE
> index 7c3421ed75..f2d161e808 100644
> --- a/CONTRIBUTE
> +++ b/CONTRIBUTE
> @@ -372,6 +372,14 @@ This repository does not contain the Emacs Lisp
> package archive
>  (elpa.gnu.org).  See admin/notes/elpa for how to access the GNU ELPA
>  repository.
> 
> +Some packages are so-called "core" packages.  The GNU ELPA scripts
> +will pick them up from the Emacs master branch and release them as
> +packages periodically; a new version is packaged when their "Version"
> +comment header is updated.  Normally a new package is released within
> +24 hours after bumping the version on the Emacs master branch.  An
> +examples is lisp/progmodes/python.el, which is released as the "python"
> +package at: https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/python.html
> +

The file CONTRIBUTE is supposed to help contributors, actual and
potential, to understand how to participate in the Emacs project.
That's what it says at its beginning:

  * How developers contribute to GNU Emacs

  Here is how software developers can contribute to Emacs.

I don't see how the above text fits that purpose.  The ELPA section is
there, and says what it says, so that people wouldn't assume that this
file also covers ELPA:

  ** GNU ELPA

  This repository does not contain the Emacs Lisp package archive
  (elpa.gnu.org).  See admin/notes/elpa for how to access the GNU ELPA
  repository.

It is okay to add text about ELPA if it includes some practically
useful information about something related to ELPA that is relevant to
contributing to the Emacs project.  But the proposed text doesn't have
any such practical information, it just expands on what ELPA
provides.  (It also talks about "core" packages without explaining
what that means or how to tell whether a given package is "core".)

So if we want to add something like that to CONTRIBUTE, we need to
rephrase it so that it fits the purpose of this file.  I cannot yet
see how to rephrase that, but that's probably because I don't
understand Ihor's request in the first place: why would it be useful
to have this information in CONTRIBUTE, which is a large file most of
which is utterly irrelevant to ELPA?

Thanks.