Re: Adding advisory notification for non-ELPA package.el downloads

[Clément Pit-Claudel]

On 2017-07-07 21:59, John Wiegley wrote:
> I have a feeling that a lot of package authors choose MELPA because 
> the barrier to entry is so low,  and they may not realize how easy it
> is to get it into Emacs as well.

It's not that they doesn't realize how easy it is: it's that it's not easy.

Getting into MELPA requires a writing a one-line Lisp form and submitting it 
for inclusion.  Getting into ELPA requires subtle git invocations that end up 
mashing up the history of your project with that of tens of others, while 
fearing to break the entire ELPA repo because of a missing copyright line in a 
test file.

And ELPA makes maintaining the package more painful, too: picking out the 
commits made by others and copying them on your personal repo requires further 
arcane git invocations — same for importing new commits from your personal 
repo. And of course you lose other MELPA goodies, like getting download 
statistics.

For now, the main motivation to publish on ELPA is ideological — not practical. 
My feeling is that package authors chose not to publish on ELPA because they 
get all they need from MELPA, for a fraction of the invested time.

Clément.