[tex-live] Date of the TeXLive 2009 freeze

[Karl Berry]

Hi Elie,

    I'm totally new to the TeXLive development process, but when will the 
    TeXLive 2009 freeze occur exactly?

No idea.  A month at least, probably more.  Know that doesn't help you
with your May travels, but that's all I can tell you.

What's happening right now is that we are trying to get the build
working at all on MacOSX.  After that is done (maybe a few more days, if
we're lucky), I will ask the builders (on the tlbuild mailing list) to
give it a shot on all their respective architectures.  This won't even
be candidates for the final release binaries, but we have to start
somewhere.

I won't even consider freezing package updates for TL 2009 until we have
a solid build.  Your guess is as good as mine as to when that will be.

I may freeze network updates in TL 2008 earlier, depending on how things
go, since a lot of work can only be done after the net updates are
stopped.  (To try to forestall possible clamor :) -- yes, this is a
drag, and no, we can't just use a branch, and yes, we will try to make
the update switchover better next year, and no, we can't avoid it this
year.)

    I'm trying to build a fontspec for LuaTeX, but I need to finish some 
    documentation before, and it will take me some time, 

Take your time and do it right.

    so I'm not sure I'll be able to finish luafontspec before the
    freeze. Would it be possible to add luafontspec after the freeze, as
    an exception?

Depends on the timing.  In any case, I wouldn't want to, and I don't
think it's necessary, because we can add packages at any time, given the
new world of dynamic updates.

Best,
Karl