Now that Emacs has had package.el for some years, and Org is installable directly from GNU ELPA, would it be a good idea to remove Org from Emacs's source repository?
The current situation is left over from before Emacs had package.el, and I see no compelling reason to keep it. Org is too big and distinct to be swallowed by Emacs; it doesn't make much sense to keep its current half-in, half-out state; so logically it seems sensible to take it out.
I am asking this question from an Org point of view; I will ask the Emacs maintainers separately for their perspective.
I think it would benefit Emacs too, as there would be less code to maintain (even though Org is quasi-external at present, it still has to build successfully as part of an Emacs build), and the Emacs distribution would be slimmer for non-Org users.
Of course, Emacs "distributions" would still be able to include Org out-of-the box if they wished.
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