Andy Piper <andyp(a)parallax.co.uk&gt; writes: This is the Efs-on-NT bugfix?. In fact I think that in that case it should just be applied to the efs package (hopefully along with something along the lines of my efs-depends-no-longer-on-read-passwd-and-comint patch) With a all due respect to the efs maintainers, I think these guidelines 1. Never apply patches to packages that have maintainers. 2. He we have a package system, we can fix it later after the release. are generally OK. However they should not be absolute a. We have a clear bug, it is critical for the package to work. We have a working patch, it's been submitted to the maintainer for inclusion in the mainline version. b. The EFS maintainers currently are busy. Michael is refering to argument 2. c. Argument 2. IMHO does not apply here. Why? 1. EFS is not just any package. By design EFS is more important for the package tools than any other package, even xemacs-base! You "cannot"[1] upgrade to the fixed package if the package system is broken. 2. I think that at important points in XEmacs history such as new version release one should make sure all packages are in a working state as this is typically the time people will be installing/upgrading packages too. [1] Ok, you can do it by hand. Unfortunately currently you still have to fetch EFS by hand.