Re: Future role of ELPA

[Oleh Krehel]

Stefan Reichör <address@hidden> writes:

> I am reading the emacs devel list. And I know that this is the direction
> that is desired by most/all developers.

> Consider a simple customization like tramp-theme. When everything is in
> stock emacs: I just can change the value of a customization variable and
> see what happens.
>
> With GNU ELPA I have to install the package first and get rid of it if I
> don't like it.
>
> My main concern with GNU ELPA is that I have to install a lot of extra
> packages manually using the package manager. When they are built-in they
> are just there.
>
> So I hope that many useful features will still be shipped with Emacs as
> integrated packages.

This can easily be made configurable.  There's nothing that prevents us
from injecting selected ELPA packages (like gnus or tramp) into the main
lisp/ directory during Emacs installation. Then, instead of
`package-install', a plain `require' would work.

My impression was that this is the way the "bundled ELPA" packages will
work. The slightly tricky part is modifying `package-initialize' so that
any package in GELPA would supersede the bundled version, since it's
newer. But it's just a matter of calling it once and sorting
`load-path'.

    Oleh