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.

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In 1976, I developed the first

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Emacs editor with some help

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from Guy 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
September 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 Emacs distribution into

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a separate package archive that we call
the Emacs Lisp package archive ELPA.

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There were two main reasons for this.

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One is to make the Emacs
distribution smaller

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so every user wouldn't have to

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get all the packages

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and install all the packages.

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And the other reason was to make it
possible to

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release individual packages

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separately 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
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.

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We should have 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

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should be called some other name.

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Oh, well! Uh this is a mistake,

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I believe, because it leads

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to a lot of confusion.

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It would have been clearer

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if we had used the other naming.

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Because the difference between

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having a package in 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

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and 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.

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So, to make 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
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
these packages

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wouldn't even tell us about them.

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They posted them in another package
archive

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where we didn't know about them

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and no attempt was made to
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

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non-free software in order to be usable)

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and technical problems,

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because the developers of those packages

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didn't coordinate with us

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about how to make it useful and

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convenient and clean to have them in
Emacs.

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So, the idea of NonGNU ELPA

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is an effort to smooth these
things out.

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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
core Emacs;

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at least not easily,

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but we will have some control over how
we distribute them.

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We can put any package into NonGNU ELPA

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as long as it's free software.

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If we like it, we can set up that way
for users to get it.

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We could put the package in
exactly as it is

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if there's no problem at all with it.

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We can make an arrangement

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with the 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 ELPA,

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but if they are not interested,

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we can put it in ourselves,

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and if we need to make any changes,

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we can do so.

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So, NonGNU ELPA is not meant to be

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just a way that others can distribute
their packages.

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It's meant, at least in

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a minimal technical sense,

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to work with GNU Emacs,

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and we'll make changes if necessary,

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so that it works smoothly with Emacs.

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And this means that we're going to
maintain it differently from GNU ELPA.

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Well, GNU ELPA is hosted in a way that
is actually rather inconvenient.

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It is one single Git repository.

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And so anybody that has access
to write it

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can write any part of it.

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There are many different packages in
there, maintained 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.

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Well, with NonGNU ELPA,
we plan to fix that.

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The idea is to have
a single Git repository

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where you can download various packages from.

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But they won't be maintained there.

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Each of those packages will be

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copied automatically from some other place.

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Probably some other repository

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where the right people have access to work on it.

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And this way we can avoid giving

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a 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,

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please write to me.

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I think this is a very important step for progress

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and it's got to be implemented.

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Thanks and happy hacking!