[tex-live] [NTG-pdftex] Runtime limitations on open files?

[Hans Hagen]

> Why do we have so many Windows-only distributions?  Why is it that
> among the widely portable distributions, the Windows ports are, if at
> all, done by specialists?

there are some commercial tex's because there is profit involved ..

concerning the other ones .. .

miktex: complete system, way ahead on other systems with regards to 
integration and packaging

fptex/xemtex: governemnement funded integrated environment for education

ptex: distribution that takes cjk processing into account

so, each has its purpose

(btw, he mac also has some 4+ distributions)

concerning specialists ... in my opinion the number of people involved 
in maintianing the unix code base is also rather specialized and not 
that large either

> Supporting Windows for cross-platform applications is always going to
> be extremely expensive with regard to developer resources because on
> Windows most things don't give a damn about standards or usability,
> and the workaround applications and libraries (where you don't get to
> see this) are Windows-only and thus not generally useful for portable
> application development.



> A working cross compilation environment would help a _lot_.

minwg binaries work ok

Hans

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