Re: Policy for packages providing newer CTAN versions than teTeX
Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br> wrote:
> Yes, I see. Like lmodern, which I heard/read is available in teTeX 3.0, but
> which wasn't replaced by the version of teTeX in experimental (I'm using
> that now --- the only thing I miss regarding teTeX 2.0 was the
> debconf-driven way of choosing language hyphenation).
The reason for the change is the new default which exists even in 2.0.2,
namely to enable all available language patterns. This doesn't slow
down the loading of the format measurably, and it makes things easier.
I made the decision to drop the (rather complicated) debconf stuff
earlier, but last week it turned out to be a good decision: We now need
the possibility for packages to add their additional hyphenation files
to the global language.dat. We use a mechanism with a language.d
directory and update-language, analogous to the existing update-*
scripts. It would be very hard to debconf handle this properly.
>> - Usually, packages that provide newer files with older versions already
>> in teTeX install into /usr/share/site-texmf/
>>
>> - If a new upstream version comes out, we "delete" files from teTeX in
>> two cases:
>>
>> a) If the package is new in teTeX and already packaged for Debian
>> (into /usr/share/texmf)
>>
>> b) If the package already was in teTeX, but now has an established,
>> well-maintained version living in site-texmf.
>
> I don't know exactly what you mean by "deleting" (if you really mean
> deleting the files), but this would be a nightmare for the
> tetex-maintainers if more packages actually got packaged for Debian.
Yes, currently I mean exatly deleting: Run a "rm" over the respective
files when the package is built. In fact it's not so hard: Once you've
figured out that there is some package that causes a conflict, or wants
to move from site-texmf to texmf, just add a view directory names to a
Makefile variable in debian/rules.
> Perhaps, just a way of overriding what is already installed (say, via an
> alternatives/diversions method) would be a saner way of dealing with the
> case.
Personally, I think that dpkg-diversions are particularly insane...
> This way, if the user don't install the newer package from Debian, having
> the one from teTeX being used seems to be a good compromise.
I don't think that it is a worthy goal to have old files lying around
just because it might be convenient, while the new version is also
packaged. And it wouldn't serve the TeX community IMHO.
> I am sorry if this has been discussed to death and if you already have
> decided on a solution to this or if there is any obvious failure in what I
> said.
It hasn't been discussed much actually.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
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