Mats Lidell writes:
What is the current view on upgrading or adding packages that might
or
might not work under 21.4. Some time has passed since 21.5 core got
GPLv3 or later so it might be the time to address this again. The
dilemma is:
- (My understanding is) GPLv3 or later packages can't really be
modified to work with 21.4 if that is the sole purpose of the
change.
If the change only works with 21.4, so you've got
(if (emacs-version>= 21 5)
(code-for-21.5)
(code-for-21.4))
I would say technically speaking you can't do that. In practice, I
wouldn't worry about it, because if necessary we can probably move the
"shim" code into 21.4 as an implementation of the 21.5 API. If that
doesn't work, the feature probably doesn't work in 21.4 at all, right?
- We would like to take advantage of using GPLv3 packages in the
package tree to stay in sync etc, etc. (lots of reasons.)
- We would like to use the ability to sync the 21.5 XEmacs core with
parts of GNU Emacs to get GPLV3 or later features possibly needed
by GPLv3 or later packages.
We have those already, now that 21.5 is GPLv3.
My, probably naive, view is to branch the packages so that we can
move
forward with adding GPLv3 or later stuff, and still have a branch that
21.4 could use.
Too much pain in the long run. IMO, it will be less pain to just
release 21.6 based on 21.5, and make that usable for current 21.4 users.
I would say that we should just do what comes naturally and revisit
this question if and when push comes to shove (ie, there's real apin
for 21.4 users due to an upgrade in a package -- and IMO that includes
"we really want this new feature or bug fix even though the old
version was reasonably usable" as well as breaking the thing
completely).
Steve
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