[OS X TeX] LinkBack/LaTeX on Mac OS X Feedback

[Alain Schremmer]

Maarten Sneep wrote:

> I believe there were contacts before between the TUG and Apple on  
> possibly including a TeX distribution in Mac OS X. However the size  
> requirements (about 20 MB, iirc) were such that I think we're better  
> off doing it ourself (using TeX Live as a basis)

I think that it would be useful to distinguish between what would be 
beneficial to us and what might attract new users.

> . Having Apple  include TeX would put us in the same situation as 
> Perl/Python/Ruby:  nice that it is there as a standard, but serious 
> user will always  want to upgrade (while you're at it, could you ask 
> about putting  these wider open source efforts not in /System/Library 
> but in / Library, so that upgrading those somponents becomes easier).
>
> If they are no longer tied to the 20 MB, then a full TeX Live would  
> be the way forward, although feedback to the developers regarding  
> changes would be needed (local trees, path names, etc).

So, inasmuch as I understand these things—which is not much in any case, 
I would say that a "minimal" TeX Live, ready out of the box with a few 
basic switches (TeXShop, Context, XeTeX, etc), would be the way to go 
with, at the same time, the possibility to upgrade, add, etc at all times.

For instance, most newcomers, like me, are likely to be without old PS 
files and so quite satisfied with pdf output and quite content to 
upgrade LaTeX along with OS X. On the other hand,  it would certainly be 
a terrible error to make things difficult for those who do have PS files 
and/or need more sophisticated installations.

Regards
--schremmer

------------------------- Helpful Info -------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
List Reminders & Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/