Re: CVS is the `released version'

[Richard Stallman]

    An analogy can be drawn to the Debian apt system.

Debian doesn't need to get copyright assignments before packaging a
program; we do need them, before we distribute a program in Emacs.
That changes everything.

In addition, Debian normally expects to find its own maintainers
for its own version of the program.  We want the developer of
the Lisp program to keep maintaining it as part of Emacs.

That makes two ways in which we need or want the developer's continued
cooperation.

If we were to help the users and the Lisp program developers bypass
us, we would be creating unnecessary difficulties for our efforts.  It
would be a mistake.  Our goal is not simply to make the users as happy
as possible in the short term.