Re: CVS is the `released version'

[Richard Stallman]

    I don't think this is a fair characterization.  The idea is not, as
    far as I can tell, to reduce the motivation for contributing material
    into Emacs' core.  It is to provide a mechanism to work with things
    that have no real place in the Emacs core.

When we all agree on which class a given package is in, there would
probably be no problem.  My concern is with the cases where there is
disagreement -- such as VM.

    In addition, if done right, it could make it _easier_ to pull material
    into Emacs' core: right now there are no hard rules for what a Emacs
    package (a conglomerate of Lisp files, auxiliary files, documentation
    and other stuff) should look like when wanting to get moved into
    Emacs.

Yes there are.  Look at the Tips appendix.  The guidelines are quite
thorough.  I don't see where having a package system could possibly
help.  (I don't think it would hurt, either.)

The main obstacle in getting new libraries into Emacs is that of
making them modular, making them follow the conventions of Emacs, 
and sometimes cleaning up the code.  I just don't see how a package
system with its own repository(s) would change anything.