[tex-live] xeCJK package missing

[Jonathan Kew]

On 18 Sep 2008, at 11:47 PM, Karl Berry wrote:

>    xetex itself is an exception -- i don't know why
>
> We certainly encourage programs to put their releases on CTAN.  And I
> bet we could set up a mirror of official XeTeX releases to CTAN using
> our usual roundabout methods or others, if you and Jonathan wish.

Since xetex was integrated into TL, I haven't been doing separate  
"official releases".... there is of course evolving development code  
that some people build and use, but I didn't package and release  
anything formally between TL2007 and TL2008.

> But as a practical matter, having sources for the basic programs on  
> CTAN
> does not really help us, since we have no infrastructure to update
> sources (ie, under Build/source/) from CTAN.  And it would be a great
> deal of effort to create such infrastructure, with only dubious
> benefit.  Very often the sources have to be changed within TL, or TL  
> is
> where they actually get tested (viz. pdftex ...).

I suppose my feeling has been that xetex doesn't really make much  
sense outside the context of a larger TeX distribution such as TL,  
MikTeX, W32TeX, etc. And it shares a good deal of source code and  
build infrastructure with the rest of TL, so creating a separate  
"standalone" xetex package would be awkward and a maintenance headache.

I do maintain a separate source repository, containing a cut-down  
version of the TL source tree, so it's possible to build xetex  
binaries separately from getting the complete TL source tree and  
building everything. Other distributions also draw from this  
repository. But I'm not sure how much anyone would really benefit from  
tarring it up and sending to CTAN. Bear in mind that CTAN does hold a  
complete copy of the xetex source as part of the TL source tree, after  
all, so it's not actually missing; it just isn't cleanly separated out.

If I do decide to make a formal release that doesn't coincide with a  
TeX Live release, I'd have nothing against submitting that to CTAN as  
well -- except that it then becomes something else to remember and  
deal with in future, when the next TL release supersedes it!

JK