[tex-live] TL13 status

Robin Fairbairns Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk
Tue Apr 9 10:35:18 CEST 2013


Philip TAYLOR <P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk> wrote:

> Norbert Preining wrote:
> 
> > nice idea, but unfortunately broken by design ...
> 
> > What is a *bug*fix*? Practically *none* of the TeX package developers
> > keeps separate branches for released packages with bug fixes and
> > development version.
> > 
> > All just upload the next version, which contians bug fixes, but also
> > new features, changes etc.
> 
> That is, unfortunately, exactly the same situation as obtains
> in the Seamonkey world, and which causes such exasperation
> amongst its users.  And I would respectfully suggest that
> it is this methodology that is "broken by design", not
> the suggestion.

remember that all the contributors to tl are volunteers, and mostly have
other work to do.  if you tell them "we will freeze on date <x>", a lot
are likely to say to themselves "so i've <y> days' work to do, so i can
start on date <x>-<y>".

you can't *tell* them to do otherwise -- you can encourage them to
behave more reasonably, but there will always be such an effect.

setting a deadline is the only way to go, imo.  it will always cause
"less than optimal" stuff to be taken, but one can't wait for ever...

robin

whose modest contributions could do with a tweak, but won't get it.


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