Now that Emacs has had package.el for some years, and Org is installable
directly from GNU ELPA, would it be a good idea to remove Org from Emacs's
source repository?

The current situation is left over from before Emacs had package.el, and I
see no compelling reason to keep it. Org is too big and distinct to be
swallowed by Emacs; it doesn't make much sense to keep its current half-in,
half-out state; so logically it seems sensible to take it out.

I am asking this question from an Org point of view; I will ask the Emacs
maintainers separately for their perspective.

I think it would benefit Emacs too, as there would be less code to maintain
(even though Org is quasi-external at present, it still has to build
successfully as part of an Emacs build), and the Emacs distribution would
be slimmer for non-Org users.

Of course, Emacs "distributions" would still be able to include Org
out-of-the box if they wished.

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