Gnus Git synchronization with Emacs Bazaar (was: The Gnus repository is switching to Git as of 2010-04-19)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Ted Zlatanov writes:

 > SJT> *What I would do if I were you* is lobby for a new subtree, "packages",
 > SJT> of the Emacs tree, and just plop Gnus into that, with its Lisp and
 > SJT> support files all under packages/gnus.
 > 
 > But that doesn't eliminate the synchronization problem: we still want to
 > keep the current setup and let Emacs keep its own version of some Gnus
 > files like message.el.  Only lisp/gnus/*.el, some docs, and some images
 > will move to the Gnus package.

This business of Gnus being composed of several notionally separate
but in fact mutually infected subsystems does substantially complicate
things.  Nevertheless, the closer you make the Gnus subset of Emacs to
the standalone Gnus tree, the easier maintenance will be.

 > I think that Gnus is a special case and we shouldn't adapt Emacs'
 > packaging system to accomodate it.

The point is that, for the purpose of the present discussion, Gnus is
not that special a case, and that's why XEmacs has a package system, and
why, after being dragged in the direction of righteousness for over a
decade, all the while kicking and screaming about the evil of possibly
proprietary packages, Emacs is getting one too.

*shrug* Emacs people like it that way, I guess.