On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 09:53:48AM +0200, Ulrike Fischer wrote: > Am Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:39:06 -0700 schrieb Chris Travers: > > >> So the limit is five years (but only for the latex kernel). > >> The version date of my (current) latex.ltx ist > >> \edef\fmtversion{2011/06/27} > > >>> Or is XeTeX not intended to be used in these environments? > > >> I would say that if your latex is more than five years old, your > >> xetex binaries and packages aren't up-to-date either. And as xetex > >> is rather young this can be quite a problem. Regardless if you want > >> to ship out only xetex documents or xetex documents + binaries: You > >> should be aware that other people can have up-to-date systems and so > >> you should make tests on such systems too (and just in case you > >> don't know: you can't use a fmt generated by one xetex version with > >> another xetex version). > > > Of course. I don't expect .fmt files to be portable. What is helpful > > is to know how to resolve the issue so I can put a faq entry in and > > direct people to it when they ask on the mailing list. (And if they > > can't get it, charge for support.) I believe I have gotten that, so I > > am satisfied with the resolution. > > > > However, so that there are no misunderstandings.... The issue here > > is being forced to choose between supporting XeTeX on many platforms > > and being able to support the platform's package manager. I don't see > > anyone here suggesting a way around that. For developers distributing > > software, that's kind of an issue. > > The problem is that there seems to a mounting number on Linux users > which are reluctant to install software without using there package > manager. And there seems to be a mounting number of maintainers of > linux distros (there just was a quite heated discussion in d.c.t.t.) > which enforce this reluctance by telling people that they set their > system at risk if they install e.g. a new TeXLive without using the > disto package manager.
And they are obviously right. > > On the other side the linux distros seems to be either unwilling or > unable to update the packages they support. Your list is quite > impressing in this respect: > > > > Debian Lenny: TexLive 2007 > > Debian Squeeze: TexLive 2009 > > Debian Sid: TexLive 2009 > > Ubuntu 10.04 LTS: TexLive 2009 > > Red Hat Enterprise 6: TexLive 2007 > > That means that the most recent versions of CentOS and Scientific > > Linux also use 2007. > > This is all (partly horribly) outdated. The current TeXLive version > is 2011 and they are currently working on 2012. Maybe the problem is that the packages of TeX-Live are not easily upgradable... > As the maintainer of the KOMA-packages pointed out this makes > support rather difficult: He constantly gets reports about bugs > which have been resolved years ago. > > What would you think of a linux distro which would force you to use > a virus protection software with signature files five years old? Hm, and I thought than prof. Knuth wanted TeX to be as stable as possible and not be subject to exactly such problems... (BTW, that's one of the reasons, I only use plan-TeX/XeTeX...) -- Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek> Jabber: but...@jabbim.cz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EA 355:001 DU DU DU DU EA 355:002 TU TU TU TU EA 355:003 NU NU NU NU NU NU NU EA 355:004 NA NA NA NA NA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex