Re: Moving files from lisp/gnus/ to lisp/net/?

[Simon Josefsson]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

>     People seem to fear using some files in gnus/ because they think the
>     files might end up loading all of Gnus.  I believe moving some of the
>     self contained files in Gnus elsewhere would be good.  This would make
>     it clear that they aren't an intrinsic part of Gnus.  Not only would
>     it make it clear for elisp programmers, it would make it clear for us
>     working on Gnus.  I.e., to make sure we don't use Gnus functions in
>     some of the files.  I just modified pop3.el to revert one such
>     example.  It would be bad if many standalone files ended up loading
>     Gnus out of pure laziness.
>
> I agree completely.
>
> It makes a big difference for Emacs maintenance whether a file is part
> of Gnus or not.  If it is part of Gnus, it is maintained by the Gnus
> developers, so they might expect to be able to change it without
> looking at how the rest of Emacs uses it.

My impression is that Gnus developers do not need to be able to do
this now, with the new Emacs CVS and emacs-devel list.  And by
synchronizing the files better, it would be possible to avoid
accidental changes.  If anything, moving the files would make it more
likely that changes are reviewed by Emacs developers, which could
avoid some problems in the future.

> We need to consider them one by one, so please don't raise
> them as a big group.  Please propose one file or a few related
> files at a time, and we will think of them.
>
> Right now let's consider only those that there is a specific reason
> to move right now.

OK, I'll think about each file individually.