why is e.g. web2c in the texmf tree?

[K. Berry]

    will web2c-7.0 support DOS filename searching? 

No.  Life is too short.  Especially since Micros**t finally decided long
filenames might be a good idea.

Like Ulrik, I advise putting the tree on a Unix machine and mounting it
on DOS, rather than the reverse.  Then longtable.sty will work properly
with a truncating filename mangler.

    Then you could access TDS trees on CDROMs without
    great problems.

I'm not sure one file qualifies as a ``great problem''.
We went to great lengths to be sure the TDS structure itself was
ISO-9660 compliant.  If individual files cause problems, they must be
resolved by their authors/sites in whatever way is possible; we can't
possibly dictate strategy to everyone.


Thanks for your comments.