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From: Heiko Muenkel <muenkel@tnt.uni-hannover.de>
To: dmoore@ucsd.edu
Cc: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: xemacs "flavours" of packages
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As one of the package maintainers I'd like to propose the following 2
steps, if you'd like to change a foreign package:

1. Try to ask the maintainer, if he would like to include the changes
   in his package. And if possible, ask him before you change anything
   to avoid unnecessary work, because it's possible, that he has already a
   newer version of his package.

2. If you can't reach the maintainer or if he rejected your changes,
   you should try to put your add ons in another file. If this isn't
   possible, then you should let the original version number and date
   as it is and add change log entries to the file. The change log
   entries should contain the date of the change, your name and a
   comment about the change. This should make it easier for the
   maintainer or for a user or even for you to apply your changes
   also to newer versions of the same package. And it makes it easier
   for the original maintainer to handle bug reports.


Heiko

PS: If you'll ever like to change one of my packages, then please
    send an email direct to my email address, because it might be that
    it won't be read otherwise, because of the sometimes high volume
    of emails on the xemacs-beta mailing list.

