Re: question

>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Buchholz <martin(a)xemacs.org&gt; writes: >>>>> "Trey" == Trey <trey(a)veggie.stu.wesleyan.edu&gt; writes: Trey> Can anyone tell me whom I should bother with my elisp checkers Trey> game? jsja> What would you like to have happen with it? Assuming it's not jsja> huge, posting it on the gnu.emacs.sources newsgroup might be the jsja> best way to expose a large number of people to it. Martin> First of all, an elisp package designed to run only with Martin> XEmacs is not welcome on gnu.emacs.sources. jsja> Sorry; wasn't aware of that restriction in the group charter. Would jsja> creating a specific public place for the posting of XEmacs-specific jsja> elisp sources be a Good Thing? (It really doesn't seem as if jsja> xemacs-beta should be that place; xemacs-patches also doesn't seem jsja> like the right place.) I don't think a mailing list is the Right Place - a more permanent mechanism, involving some kind of long-term availability from xemacs.org, is appropriate. I can think of 3 levels of lisp packages - those effectively in the core, like xemacs-base - those we provide as part of the sumos - those we provide in a "contrib" directory. These levels indicate different levels of certainty that they work and are useful with XEmacs. Martin> Secondly, I think our eventual goal is to have all "good" Martin> elisp packages be part of the XEmacs package tree, where the Martin> package maintainers can update them. So we want to put Martin> checkers into xemacs-packages/games. jsja> But, in order to get the ball rolling -- to make the package jsja> maintainers aware of a candidate package, and to enable them to check jsja> it out and discuss it -- is posting the source (or a link to the jsja> source) to xemacs-beta the way to go? I'm pretty sure this is the jsja> second time Trey has posted this query, and this is the first time I jsja> recall anyone responding. Obviously we have problems responding to all the demands on our time. Ideally we would have an ongoing job of package-author-interface person who: - keeps track of the status of external packages. - integrates or helps the author integrate packages into the XEmacs framework somewhere. - sets up CVS commit access for all package authors. - creates "beta" and "stable" versions of packages, as appropriate. These are tasks we haven't been doing very well. It's a big job. Ideally the same person would actually be the packages release engineer (currently done by Andreas Jaeger). I plan to have more time to spend on XEmacs over the next year, and I may take on some parts of this important task. However, no XEmacs Internals/programming skills are involved, so I would prefer if I spent my time on things I was particularily qualified to do (like fix bugs), and that someone else would do this job. jsja> If that is the "eventual goal", then the question: "How do I get my jsja> elisp package added to the XEmacs distribution" should probably be in jsja> the FAQ, along with an answer outlining the process. I'm not currently jsja> clear on what that process is supposed to be. Neither am I. We elect someone to do the job, but perhaps the job is too boring to attract people in a hacker-driven community? jsja> "Question 1.1.3: How do I contribute to XEmacs itself?" looks as if it jsja> should contain the answer, but really doesn't. It also talks about jsja> 'posting', but it's unclear what forum one should post to; I guess jsja> xemacs-beta. We really need to do a better job of enabling other people to contribute to XEmacs. But instead of trying to solve the BIG problem, let's just try today to solve the problem of helping Trey. Martin