From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 23 12:53:08 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 33386AC0; Sun, 23 Nov 2014 12:53:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail2.nber.org (mail2.nber.org [198.71.6.79]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B76A3191; Sun, 23 Nov 2014 12:53:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from nber7.nber.org (nber7.nber.org [198.71.6.41]) by mail2.nber.org (8.14.8/8.14.7) with ESMTP id sANCWeWP052276 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Sun, 23 Nov 2014 07:32:41 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from feenberg@nber.org) Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 07:32:40 -0500 (EST) From: Daniel Feenberg To: "Christopher J. Ruwe" Subject: Re: value of maintaining emacs-mode packages in ports In-Reply-To: <1416699134.31598.2.camel@mccarthy> Message-ID: References: <1416699134.31598.2.camel@mccarthy> User-Agent: Alpine 2.11 (LRH 23 2013-08-11) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Anti-Virus: Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux Mail Server 5.6.39/RELEASE, bases: 20140401 #7726142, check: 20141123 clean Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 12:53:08 -0000 On Sun, 23 Nov 2014, Christopher J. Ruwe wrote: > > In that light and as the ports maintainer of math/ess, the Emacs > speaks statistics R-mode of emacs, I am asking myself specifically > whether I add any real benefit in maintaining math/ess. More > generally, I am interested in community answers as to whether it is > really useful to maintain Emacs-extension-packages in ports. > As a non-Emacs user, can I raise some questions that should be asked every time a service/feature is withdrawn? If you stop maintaining math/ess, does it go away, or merely stop improving? Does the Emacs package system support the same versions of Emacs that you support in math/ess? If a user upgrades FreeBSD will he lose what he has unless he converts to the new Emacs package system? Is the Emacs package system something that requires an installation of its own? May I suggest that if you let it go away, you place a README file where Emacs-extension-packages was that points users to the replacement, with instructions for how to get there? Not everyone using Emacs on FreeBSD follows the mailing lists for FreeBSD, (or Emacs). Daniel Feenberg