Re: libkpathsea transition

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Hilmar Preusse <hille42@web.de> wrote:

> On 30.08.05 Frank Küster (frank@debian.org) wrote:
>> Hilmar Preusse <hille42@web.de> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>> > Hmm, wasn't it the case, that the old libkpathsea3 implements the
>> > new TDS, while libkpathsea4 understands the new one? I.e. a
>> > program linked with libkpathsea3 won't work with tetex 3.0? Or am
>> > I totally broken?
>> 
>> Actually the TDS changes are mainly in texmf.cnf - there might be
>> some new variables that only the new kpathsea understands.
>> 
> Hmm, OK.
>
>> I think that a program linked against libkpathsea3 (and using this
>> version, of course) would still find most files on a putative unstable
>> system with teTeX-3.0. If it doesn't, that would be inconvenient for
>> the unstable user
>> 
> I'd like to have it tested before simply assuming that the search lib
> does not affect anything. E.g. the japanese version of dvips would
> search map files etc. at the wrong place, which would completely
> break the package.

Testing before uploading is always a good idea.  On the other hand, we
can't test every package that interacts with TeX, and must put some load
on the maintainers.  I think I'm going to write a mail to
debian-devel-announce next week, so that maintainers get time to test,
and upload at the end of September or early in October (depending on how
things go when I'm back from my vacation (2005-09-10 to 09-25).

But, just to make that clear:  This has nothing to do with the testing
transition.   Well, it might need some hints by the people controlling
that (because it might work in testing, but not in unstable, and the
packages get a bug report), but it doesn't give real problems.  And the
testing transition is all that this is about.

> Correct. Maybe I'm just to conservative. IMHO we should wait until
> the next transition is allowed by the RM. 

I'm not going to do anything without an explicit yes from them.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer