[tex-live] Technical showstopper

[Fabrice Popineau]

> does this create serious problems for these formats (Plain/ConTeXt)?
> i.e. when they read characters in ^^ notation, are the results
> different from reading the corresponding 8-bit characters? BTW, the ^^
> notation has been the default in TeX for the 8-bit characters for a
> long time. so if someone wishes to change to non-standard way TeX
> writes 8-bit chars to files, why not use the non-standard option like
> --translate-file ?

For the moment and for ConTeXt, I would say yes.

My point is:

- we have a texlive 8 whose behaviour is different for the texlive 7 is
this aspect, that should be at least stated

- if tex pretends to be eight bits compatible, I  don't see any point in
keeping this ^^ notation. If it reads 0xe9 in a file,  it should be able
to write it too.

Patrick Gundlach and Daniel Flipo at least had problems with that issue (or
that's what I have been told). Maybe they can comment about it.

Fabrice