[tex-live] [www-ptex 163999] Conflicting binary/format names: platex is polish and japanese

[Hideaki Togashi]

Hello Dr. Frank and other members,

This is Hideaki Togashi of ASCII Co. in Japan.

Thank you for your contacting to us.

I've been worrying about this matter.  But we couldn't do nothing.

pTeX was developed as jTeX on 1987, and pTeX (publishing TeX) was
opend to public on 1989.  Since then, we Japanese have used the names
'ptex' and 'platex', and we are accustomed to the names.  It took a
very long time for us to recognize the existence of Polish TeX.  It
was on teTeX we found Polish TeX as far as I can remember.

For now, first of all, I let some pTeX members (including people
outside of ASCII Co.) know your e-mail, and asked them any idea.  I
hope there may be some good solution to this problem.

Cheers,

-- 
Hideaki Togashi <hideak-t at ascii.co.jp>



From: Frank Küster <frank at debian.org>
Subject: [www-ptex 163999] Conflicting binary/format names: platex is polish and japanese
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:10:11 +0100
> 
> Dear fellow TeX developers,
> 
> there are two TeX formats that use the name "platex", the Japanese ptex
> project as well as PLaTeX, a LaTeX with preloaded polish settings and
> fonts.  Debian GNU/Linux now has packages for both, but they cannot be
> installed and used at the same time: Both use a symlink platex (once to
> ptex, once to pdftex), and both want to load platex.fmt.
> 
> Even on single-user-systems people might want to have installed both
> (polish scientists working about Japan, or the other way round), but on
> large multi-user installations (e.g. at universities) it might be even
> more needed.
> 
> What do you think about that?  Should both rename their formats?  
> 
> TIA, Frank
> -- 
> Dr. Frank Küster
> Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
> Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
>