> From: Sean Whitton <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected], [email protected],
> [email protected]
> Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2026 16:56:22 +0100
>
> >> So I would love to see the emacs-31 branch stay alive longer upstream.
> >> That would significantly reduce the need for my site-local branch.
> >
> > IOW, you'd like us to do this job for you, in addition to the many
> > other duties we already have.
>
> I think that Spencer is, rather, envisaging a pooling of both efforts
> *and* benefits.
I hope so. The wording above tells a different story ("reduce the
need for my site-local branch" etc.), or maybe I misinterpreted it.
Apologies if so.
> > IOW, this is a matter of manpower and resources. We need more of that
> > to be able to do the followings (in addition to a lot of duties the
> > head maintainers already have and do, which you as a downstream distro
> > don't have):
> >
> > . examine each bugfix and decide whether it is relevant to older
> > major releases, and if so, is it safe enough to include there
> > . produce tarballs from previous branches after enough bugfixes
> > accumulated (or maybe even after each fix)
> >
> > Volunteers are welcome to take over these parts.
>
> If Spencer's site's team are doing this work anyway, could we come up
> with a way to do it together in public?
We could try, but I'd like to see a concrete proposal for doing that
first.
> Let's set aside the tarballs part; I am confident I can handle that,
> it's not very time-consuming and it is ripe for more scripting.
> It's the maintaining of the branch that's at issue.
I think you underestimate the effort needed to produce the tarball,
test it and upload it. Doesn't it take a few hours? How much time do
you have to work on Emacs on any given day?
> Maybe backporting *from* Jane Street's branch *to* Savannah's branch
> would allow us to overcome the problem Stefan describes of not being
> able to give the fixes enough testing?
Not sure what will this solve. We still need to be very much involved
in the examination of the fixes and the decisions to which branch(es)
to backport them. This must be a job of the Emacs maintenance team,
so if Spencer or someone else volunteers to do it, they will need to
become part of the team and take the responsibility for doing this and
communicating with the rest of the team as part of the decision what
to do with each fix.
