change in Debian emacs policy: make global enabling of add-on lisp packages optional

[Faheem Mitha <faheem@email.unc.edu>]

Dear People,

I don't know if I am out of line here, I'm not a Debian Developer or a
maintainer of an emacs-related package, just an appreciative user.

I think that for add-on lisp packages for emacs, there should be an
install-time option (debconf would be the obvious way to go here) to
enable the package globally, and if it is not enabled globally, there
should be instructions in the README.Debian to enable it locally on a
per-user basis. Both AUC TeX and preview-latex are currently doing
this, and I believe x-symbol will be following this soon, based on a
recent thread on this list.

My basic justification for this is that some users may not want
packages enabled that they don't want/need to use, and in some cases
it may interfere with their established methods of working.

I looked at current Debian emacs policy, and I don't see anything like
this there. I would suggest this as an addition. I think it might be
possible to file this as a bug report, but I am not sure, so I thought
I would post the thought to this list to see what the reaction was, if
any.

I'm not subscribed to the list, so feel free to cc me if you feel this
is appropriate, though I expect I will check back here eventually.

                                  Best regards, Faheem Mitha.