Re: package system and backwards compatibility
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull(a)sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> writes:
Simon> Every time a xemacs-package maintainer wants to sync a
Simon> package with the external source, it needs to update any
Simon> XEmacs modifications.
Yes. We have a choice. We can be professionals, and attempt to do
real maintenance, or we can be prima donnas, assuming that we have no
responsibility to people who don't update to our latest version of
XEmacs.
Well.. I don't think it would be a good thing if, e.g., the XEmacs
Gnus package maintainer implements backwards compatibility in the
XEmacs Gnus package just because Gnus stop supporting XEmacs 21 at
some point in time, like it did with emacs 19. This situation will
happen sooner or later.
Another point, if the original author disagrees with the XEmacs
modifications, we'd might end up in a pop3.el situation as well...
Aw, I'll shut up and try to figure out some way of putting my ideas
into code for the packaging system. But packaging is really
difficult, so I doubt I'll really get anywhere.