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

[Miles Bader]

On Fri, Oct 15, 2004 at 09:26:59PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> 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.

Offhand I think it's a great idea, but a few twists come to mind:

  * What will these file's status in "upstream" Gnus be?  Gnus tries to be
    compatible with older emacs versions, so it seems like you can't just
    remove them from the Gnus distribution, but for this "separation" to have
    any real effect for Gnus developers, it would seem that they shouldn't be
    kept in their current location.

  * As discussed in another thread, Richard has said that files which are not
    under lisp/gnus/, and not "obviously" Gnus-related, should have a
    slightly different status with respect to the Gnus developers -- he
    doesn't want arbitrary changes made to them without more discussion
    (whereas with files under lisp/gnus/, you have a freer hand).

    In the previous thread, I came to the conclusion that this wasn't a big
    deal for th because the files in question are unlikely to see major
    changes on the branch Emacs syncs with (v5-10) anyway, but perhaps some
    sort of more official policy for Gnus upstream is useful (e.g., "Don't
    make major changes to the files in the "blahblah/" directory without
    coordinating it with Emacs developers first").

> Btw, should I do cvs remove + add, or should someone with repository
> access do it?  Moving in the repository is typically bad (it break
> historic CVS branches), but I don't know what the tradition here is.

Moving in the repository is _very_ bad.  Definitely just "remove + add"; you
can include the old location in the CVS log for users to follow.

-Miles
-- 
We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
-Oscar Wilde