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Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 16:49:59 -0700
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From: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>
To: "John A. Turner" <turner@lanl.gov>
Cc: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: xemacs "flavours" of packages
In-Reply-To: <199704072321.RAA24976@branagh.ta52.lanl.gov>
References: <rvvi5yxw4m.fsf@sdnp5.ucsd.edu>
	<199704072321.RAA24976@branagh.ta52.lanl.gov>
Reply-To: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>

>>>>> "John" == John A Turner <turner@lanl.gov> writes:

John> Timely question, considering the post in c.e.x. by Michael Lamoureux
John> about frame-icon and diffs between his version and the one included in
John> 19.15 (which I believe came from Bob Weiner).

John> I guess we (or I) should have contacted him before inclusion.  Oh
John> well.

John> It's a difficult issue, to be sure...

One of the advantages the free software world has over the commercial
software world is the ease of making changes.  It is still difficult,
however.  The primary maintainer should always be contacted, as the
price of assuming maintenance of the package is generally higher than
one suspects initially.  And it's just plain the civil thing to do.

I see Hrvoje custom-izing everything, and wonder whether RMS will
accept any of the changes, and whether he is creating maintenance
problems for the future.  Is there any way custom support could be
added to packages without modifying the original package files
themselves?  (This is not meant as criticism).

Martin

