How do I submit updates of packages?

Question

How do I submit updates of packages that I use to the ELPA? Can someone provide an example of how to prepare paredit-22, for example, to put onto the ELPA?

Answer 1

I think that one of the reasons that ELPA isn't getting many package submissions is that there is still little known about the official ELPA repository(http://elpa.gnu.org/) that will be setup for Emacs 24(which will have ELPA built-in). Without guidelines most people would probably rather wait than duplicate their efforts. There is also a lot of controversy surrounding ELPA - most about its inability to update packages automatically which makes a lot of users question its value at all. I, personally, favor distribution packages over something like ELPA, but not everyone is using GNU/Linux and even there not everyone would agree with me.

Answer 2

The ELPA website explains exactly what to do:

http://tromey.com/elpa/upload.html

Answer 3

To contribute to GNU ELPA, you must sign FSF copyright assignment papers and then follow the instructions to upload your package.

Alternatives for ELPA are Marmalade and MELPA, which have huge repositories and are immensely popular among Emacs users.

Marmalade requires registration on the website, after which you can upload your package. Because Marmalade requires manual uploading of packages, it usually provides stable versions. Read instructions for uploading.

MELPA works differently from Marmalade. Usually you store your package online in some version control system, then you register it through MELPA's GitHub page, and MELPA regularly automatically synchronizes with it, so MELPA users always have access to the bleeding edge version of the packages. As of March 2015 it has >2300 packages. Read instructions on how to upload your package to MELPA.