Re: Re: Support (or not) for Emacs 21, and XEmacs

[Michael Sperber <sperber@deinprogramm.de>]

Hi Carsten,

many thanks for your e-mail!  (And many thanks for your work on
org-mode, which is the best piece of software I've started using for a
few years.)

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:

> However, I have recently more and more the feeling how having to
> cater for several Emacs versions is a drag.

I understand and would feel the same in your situation.  So I was
wondering if I could make it easy enough for you so org-mode could keep
the XEmacs code in.

> My feeling was also that the interest in the XEmacs side for
> Org-mode is low.  To my knowledge there is no Org-mode package for
> XEmacs, and the number of user on the mailing list seems to be very
> limited.

Right.  However, the reason why this is so is trivial: org-mode is
GPLv3, and thus can't be a package for XEmacs, which is currently still
GPLv2.  (There has been a long and tedious discussion of this over in
XEmacs land which I'd like to spare you from.)  However, we've pretty
much resolved the GPLv3 issues over the past few months, and I hope that
we'll have a GPLv3 XEmacs very soon.  At which point I'll personally
make an XEmacs package.

> So let me start with a question:  Is XEmacs still alive, innovative?
> There has been no major release (it seems to me) for a very long time.
> It was my feeling that the XEmacs project is on its way to a slow death.
> I may be wrong about this.

Development, which was slow for a long time, has recently picked up
significantly.  Releases are a problem, I admit: The developers
essentially all use the development branch, which is by now vastly
different from the 21.4 release.  (Also, the GPLv3 issue has kept us
from being able to merge Emacs code for a long time.)  But we'll do a
release at some point.

> You propose to help.  One way to go would be to continue a branch
> based on Org-mode 6.35, and to merge any new stuff into that branch.

That's definitely a possibility.

> So a dedicated XEmacs-related person could keep such an XEmacs.
> In my test branch where I remove compatibility code (not only
> XEmacs, but also Emacs 21, and I'd love to ditch support for
> Emacs 22 - even though I cannot do that just yet), quite some code
> has changed, and I am not sure how easy it would be to keep
> a compatibility branch up to date.

Is there any way to leave the compatibility code in place and not worry
about it, so long as it does not interfere with your work on the current
Emacs?  (I don't know how big that interference is, I must admit.)  I
could then try to fix it up as development goes along.

-- 
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla