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

WEBVTT

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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 Lisp 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 Emacs

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Lisp

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package archive ELPA.

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There were two main reasons for this. One

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is to make the Emacs 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 Lisp

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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 Emacs 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 NonGNU 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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NonGNU ELPA 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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NonGNU 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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package's developers

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to work on it with us and maintain it

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directly for distribution by NonGNU

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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, NonGNU 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 NonGNU

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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 NonGNU 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!