Bug#240412: tetex-extra: revtex4 \pageheight and letterpaper bug
Hein Roehrig <debian-bts@hein.roehrig.name> schrieb:
> A good solution would be to have a \ExecuteOptions{letterpaper}
> somewhere.
Without having looked at the code or tried the example: Your analysis
and proposed fix sound reasonable.
> I reported this to revtex@aps.org and got as answer that
> work/maintenance of revtex4 at APS has stalled and that they
> considered fixing it if (sic) they make a new release.
That is, they won't fix it, since if maintenance is stalled there won't
be a new release...
> In view of the
> other outstanding revtex4 bug, I'd think that this warrants fixes
> either in Debian or in teTeX... what do you think?
It's really worth a fix, however I doubt that we are the right people to
do it. Both the Debian team and Thomas Esser have a hard job with
packaging and updating teTeX as a distribution, assigning bugs to the
right packages, contacting upstream authors etc. pp.
There are two problems if we start fixing bugs in the TeX input files of
packages like revtex4. Once we've taken responsibility for the package,
we can't really refuse to apply the next fix, and why not do the same
with some other package? Our workload would increase enormously, I
fear. Not to speak of the merging offer if, unexpectedly, there's a new
upstream version with major changes. I cannot speak for the whole team,
of course, but I doubt one would be willing to take that responsibility.
The other problem is that then there are two lines of development for
these packages: The official one on CTAN, and the bugfixed one in Debian
or teTeX. Not everybody is using teTeX, but TeX is also famous because
you're supposed to be able to transfer a document to a different
computer, and produce identical output.
So in fact patching would mean that we are essentially taking over the
package. This shouldn't be done by distributors who don't use the
package themselves. Rather one or a group of active users of revtex
should do this, and either rename it or ask the APS if they agree to let
them reuse the name.
This brings us to the question of the license, and there's an other big
problem. While in the file (revtex4.cls) it says that it is licensed
under LPPL, the Catalogue states that revtex has a nosell license. We
should really investigate this, with a nosell license it cannot be
included in Debian, and probably not even in teTeX and TeXlive (which
are for sure sold for profit, e.g. by Linux distributors or Lehmann's in
Germany).
If you don't feel you can take responsibilty for it, you can try to
contact other users (in mailing lists or usenet, or perhaps ask the
other bugreporters) and form a group.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
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