path: root/2020/subtitles/emacsconf-2020--39-nongnu-elpa--richard-stallman-autogen.sbv

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hello i'm richard stallman

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founder of the gnu project in 1976 i

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developed the first

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emacs editor with some help from guy

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steele

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then shortly after starting to develop

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the gnu operating system in 1984

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i wanted an emacs editor for it

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so i started writing gnu emacs in

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september

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1984.

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several years ago we decided to move

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many of the emacs list packages outside

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the core

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emacs distribution into a separate

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package archive that we call the e-max

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list

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package arc elpa

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there were two main reasons for this one

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is to make the emax distribution smaller

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so every user wouldn't have to get all

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the packages

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and install all the packages and the

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other reason was to make it possible to

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release

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individual packages separately

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from emacs releases

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now at that point somehow we decided to

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support loading packages from

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a variety of different emacs list

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package archives

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and ours would be called the gnu elpa

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but elpa could be any other

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now i think that naming was a mistake we

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should have

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meant we should have decided that elpa

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referred to our package archive

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and any other package archive should be

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called some other name

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oh well uh this

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is a mistake i believe because it leads

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to a lot of confusion it would have been

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clearer

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if we had uh used the other naming

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because the difference between having a

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package in

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core emacs and having it in gnu elpa

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is purely a practical convenience matter

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convenience of distribution and

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convenience of maintenance

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we wanted to be able to move packages

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between the two

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whenever that was convenient so to make

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that possible

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we insisted on getting copyright

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assignments for packages in gnu elpa

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just the same way we do for packages in

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core emacs

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having the facility for installing

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packages from package archives

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led to a tremendous boost in the

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development and release of emax packages

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unfortunately there was a problem with

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the way that was done

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for the most part the developers of

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these packages

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wouldn't even tell us about them they

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posted them

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in another package archive where we

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didn't know about them

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and where they no attempt was made to

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try to fit them

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into emacs so that they could make sense

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as parts of the emacs distribution

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this led to both moral problems

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packages that depended on non-free

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software in order to be usable

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and technical problems because the

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developers of those packages didn't

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coordinate with us

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about how to make it useful and

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convenient and clean to have them

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in emacs

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so the idea of non-gdu elpa

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is an effort to smooth these things

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out the fundamental plan of

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non-gnu eopa is that

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we won't ask for copyright assignments

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for those packages

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so we won't be able to put them into

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core emacs

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at least not easily but we will

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have some control over how we distribute

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them

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we can put any package into

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non-gnu elpa as long as it's free

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software

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if we like it we can

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set up that way for users to get it

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we could put the package in exactly as

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it is

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if there's no problem at all with it

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we can make an arrangement with the

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packages developers

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to work on it with us and maintain it

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directly for distribution by non-gdu

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elpa

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but if they are not interested we can

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put it in

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ourselves and if we need to make any

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changes we can do so

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so non-gnu elpa

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is not meant to be just a way

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that others can distribute their

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packages

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it's meant at least in a minimal

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technical

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sense to work with gnu emacs and we'll

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make changes if necessary so that it

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works smoothly with

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emacs and

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this means that we're going to maintain

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it differently

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from gnu elpa well gnu elpa

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is hosted in a way that is actually

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rather inconvenient

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it is one single git repository

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and so anybody that has access to write

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it

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can write any part of it there are many

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different packages in there maintained

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by different people

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and we have no way to give each one of

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them access to per own package

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and not to the others well with non-gnu

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elpa we plan to fix that the idea is to

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have

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a single git repository where you can

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download various packages from

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but they won't be maintained there each

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of those packages will be

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copied automatically from some other

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place

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probably some other repository where

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the right people have access to work on

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it

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and this way we can avoid giving a

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gigantic number of people

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access to every part of it

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so far non-gnu elpa is just a plan

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we need people to implement the plan

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so if you would like to help please

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write to me

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i think this is a very important step

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for progress

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and it's got to be implemented

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thanks and happy hacking