-*- outline -*-

This file contains notes on packaging new versions of Gnus.

* What to Merge

XEmacs distributes the "stable" release of Gnus.  For a long time
this was the 5.10 branch.  Currently there are at least 3 contenders
for the "stable" release, and no direction has been forthcoming from
the Gnus developers.  The 3 contenders are

  - the latest release in the 5.10 branch
  - the last release in the previous development branch (e.g., if "Ma"
    Gnus is the current development branch, then use the last release
    from the "No" Gnus branch)
  - the version of Gnus that was included in the most recent release
    of GNU Emacs.

In any event, tarballs are no longer being posted on gnus.org.
Instead, you must download a snapshot from an upstream repo, either
the Git repository on gnus.org or the Git repository for Emacs.

* How to Merge

** Files to (Not) Include

Upstream Gnus releases contain many files that are not included in the
XEmacs Gnus package.  The following files from the "lisp" directory
should _NOT_ be included in the XEmacs Gnus package, as they are
delivered in other XEmacs packages:

  dig.el
  dns.el
  hex-util.el
  netrc.el
  pgg-def.el
  pgg-gpg.el
  pgg-parse.el
  pgg-pgp.el
  pgg-pgp5.el
  pgg.el
  pop3.el
  rfc2104.el
  sha1.el
  sieve-manage.el
  sieve-mode.el
  sieve.el
  starttls.el
  tls.el

Corresponding files from the texi directory should also be omitted.

We have not been delivering the current smiley.el, either, because an
earlier maintainer preferred an old version over the one that is
currently included in Gnus releases.

The XEmacs Gnus package does include the following files from the
"contrib" directory:

  gpg-ring.el
  gpg.el
  hashcash.el
  nnir.el
  vcard.el

It would make more sense for vcard.el to be included in the mail-lib
package, so that it can be more easily used by other MUAs, notably VM.
Getting that fixed will require negotiation with the maintainers for
mail-lib and VM.