Subject: Re: bug#59609: 29.0.50; [PATCH] Better advertise (Non-)GNU ELPA in emacs manual

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2022 16:00:41 -0800

Richard Stallman <[email-masked]> writes:

>   > I see no risk that the packages will suddenly go away.  Under what
>   > circumstances would that happen?
>
> Here are two ways I can envision.
>
> If somehow the developers are no longer working on it in a way
> we can use.
>
> If it rots and needs substantial change and the developers
> are not interested in doing that.

I'm positive that these things can and will happen, but that's true also
for GNU ELPA and parts of Emacs itself (see lisp/obsolete/*.el).  Or
indeed with any software.  I'm not sure why this would need pointing out
specifically in the case of NonGNU ELPA.

Software dies at times.  C'est la vie.

>   >   But I don't see
>   > why we need to get into all that in this section, where we are just
>   > letting people know that GNU ELPA and NonGNU ELPA exist.
>
> It's about two lines -- not enough to qualify as "all that".

I was thinking more about the concept than the amount of text.  It
suggests that this concern is somehow specific to NonGNU ELPA.

FWIW, I believe the number of packages I've been using that have stopped
"being present" in my two decades or so with Emacs are... well, zero.
Zero packages.  Some are indeed unmaintained, but I still use them and
they work as well (or indeed badly) as they did ten or twenty years ago.