[tex-live] Re: Omega 1.15

[Roozbeh Pournader]

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:

> well, they were discussed already, weren't they?

I simply couldn't decode every discussion, since I didn't know there were
two source repositories.

> I didnt think it was much of a big deal, to be honest. Does it affect
> you?

In the previous way of doing things, definitely no. In the way I'm trying 
to put, a little stability at the beginning is great, so I can make sure 
everything is in place.

> its OK, in the short term, to run multiple repositories, with a few
> people doing hand work in the middle.  but in our TeX world we tend to
> let short-term things last for 10 years or more.

Unfortunately you're right.

> we _already_ have 3 repositories doing slightly different, but
> essentially the same, things (teTeX, web2c, and TeX Live), as well as
> the Omega one. it's not healthy, at all. we really should combine all
> our efforts into a single place. but we have so much inertia and
> history....

If you cannot unite those on TeX Live, how can I push John or Omega? The
first time I asked for an open repository of Omega with commit access was
long long ago. (I asked Yannis how can I have an OTP for an Iranian
National Standard in the distribution, and he told me just to put it on
CTAN.) It is just a few days since I have CVS access. (Yes, I could branch
an OpenOmega, but I don't have the energy or the expertise to maintain it,
so I needed a shared effort.)

> I am very glad that you have the time to do this pushing.

No, I don't. I'm much more than busy, and I already lead a team of
developers which I need to micromanage (see www.farsiweb.info). I'm
cutting time from being with my girlfriend and also some sleeping.

I am just hoping, and I feel a little responsiblity, since I am a Unicode
insider. There are only a few Unicode insiders still interested in
TeXities, and they are three times busier than me.

> [...] If I could hand it over as a smoothly running operation to the
> Omega effort, I would. But would anyone honestly advise me to do this?

No. You are doing it exactly fine.

> I don't think John or Yannis are at all interested in making user-level
> distributions.....

No, they're not. I even can't understand why they are continuing Omega in
such a way. Why they are releasing it.

> As I say, I really do appreciate the work you have started here,
> Roozbeh, and I wish I had a Plan that we would all work towards.
> But it just isn't clear which way to go.

I don't plan. I just do small things. I dream something like typesetting a
Persian Unicode XML document using XSL-FO with a TeX-based engine (let's
call that Omega). And that's what I really need, what my colleagues in the
adjacent office need for their report generation.

I then head there by fixing obvious things that are obviously broken. The
Arabic character classes in OTPs have problems, I can fix it. Omega
development model is broken, I can also fix it.

If that starts to use a lot of resources without any apparent output, I
will stop, and head somewhere else. And these are as divergent as hinting
outlines with FontLab, organizing a local Linux Users Group, writing
proposals for Unicode characters needed for proper encoding of Koran,
reporting bugs to Microsoft for their problematic Persian support in
Internet Explorer, or attending a meeting on Internationalized Domain
Names.

Sorry for being so long,
roozbeh