Re: Org Mode version to be bundled with Emacs 25?

[Robert Weiner]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 12:14 PM, John Wiegley <address@hidden> wrote:

This is also a further argument for Org-mode to be released through ELPA,
rather than Emacs core, in which case none of this would be a real problem --
except for the recent bug reported concerning org-capture.

​This makes sense as packages are likely to evolve much faster than Emacs.  But there is something missing in Emacs presently that would make this a much more attractive option to package developers who want the broadest base of users.  There needs to be a simple, single function call to require a package which would automatically download, build, install and activate it (a flag could control whether or not this actually happened automatically or if the user were prompted to confirm, etc).

Of course, there would be a way to require a particular version or the latest version of a package from the first matching archive in use by the package manager.  There is already a flag to require that the package be digitally signed.  Maybe this feature could be connected to autoloads as well.

The main issue I see right now is that packages are installed on a per-user basis rather than a per-Emacs site basis, so you would get a lot more code instance duplication and version management issues than you would have with a package integrated into Emacs core.

With this feature, Emacs core programmers could start referencing external packages as if they were already installed and Org could potentially move back out of core.

If we can find consensus that this would be a good thing to add, I might be willing to develop it.

Bob