[tex-live] revision numbers in texlive.tlpdb

[Norbert Preining]

Hi François,

On Sa, 31 Okt 2009, François Charette wrote:
> To prepare the texlive packages for my particular distro, I have my own
> script that uses your excellent Perl API, and it very simply happens to

Like I do with Debian.

> rely on those numbers. When a given package has been updated upstream
> (that is, by you), my script will eventually update the source tarballs
> from which the texlive packages for Arch Linux are  built. In other

Yes, that is a good approach.

> words, the versions of the TL packages I maintain are based on those
> revision numbers. The current situation means that next time I will
> update the packages for our distro, which I only do every month or two,

That is to be expected in pre-release times. I had to rebuild the
Debian TL .orig.tar.gz already several times. This will happen until
we release.

After that, the same might happen (although I just now fixed the code
that such a disaster not will happen again becasue svn status dies ;-)
we cannot change that. But we try to minimize non-code changes, not
only for us, but for all the users of texlive proper, so that they
don't have to re-download a package just we changed a space somewhere.

The same is with you, we are sorry for that, but it happened ;-) And
we try to reduce the probability that something similar
happens again.

> Thanks for the explanation. Don't misunderstand me: I can live with
> that. But my initial reaction was one of surprise that something might
> have gone wrong without your being aware of it. You are of course

Yes we were well aware of, as you could have seen from Karl's
announcement to the list on which you have answered!!!

> responsible for tlmgr only, and not for any use of its underlying
> infrastructure that might be happening downstream :)

Well, since *I* am also "downstream" Debian, I do care ;-)

Best wishes

Norbert

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Norbert Preining                                        Associate Professor
JAIST Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology   preining at jaist.ac.jp
Vienna University of Technology                               preining at logic.at
Debian Developer (Debian TeX Task Force)                    preining at debian.org
gpg DSA: 0x09C5B094      fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DUGGLEBY (n.)
The person in front of you in the supermarket queue who has just
unloaded a bulging trolley on to the conveyor belt and is now in the
process of trying to work out which pocket they left their cheque book
in, and indeed which pair of trousers.
			--- Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff