[tex-live] query about archives

[George N. White III]

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:

>    What are the criteria for inclusion in TL?
>    ... point me in the direction of the relevant documentation,
>
> FYI, the web page I had written that talks about this is
> http://tug.org/texlive/pkgcontrib.html.  I just updated it with more of
> the info we have talked about here.

Very helpful.  It might be nice to give examples of well constructed
packages in each of the categories simple, complex, and with
binaries/scripts.

For for packages that contain source code it is worth mentioning:

Others will want to compile on a wide range of past, current, and
future systems.  If your code deals with platform differences using
"#ifdef <platform_X>" then someone who does not  have access
to <platform_X> may find it difficult to port the code to
<platform_Y>.  If your code uses #ifdef HAVE_<SOME_CAPABILITY>,
it will be easier to determine the changes that might be required
for a new platform.  The GNU autoconf system is disigned to facilitate
this approach, but does not prevent you from using "#ifdef <platform_X>".


For packages that contain shell scripts:

Please consider rewriting the scripts using luatex or perl.  Shell
scripts require careful coding to run on the full range of unix-like
systems, and do not work at all on MS Windows.  Package authors
should also note that many widely used utilities (awk, sed, make, etc.)
are not generally available on MS Windows.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia