[tex-live] problem with babel package

[Philipp Stephani]

Am 20.05.2011 um 09:32 schrieb Norbert Preining:

> On Do, 19 Mai 2011, Philipp Stephani wrote:
>> I think the most common problem for TeX Live in Ubuntu is that the packages are always outdated.
> 
> Which again comes from the fact that Ubuntu takes from Debian, and I package
> for Debian only what will go into a release. TL2005 got into woody
> TL 2007 in etch, TL2009 in squeeze, in TL2011 probably into the next release.
> 
> That is in general a distribution problem, hey *never* can provide
> the newest packages if the release cycle is 1-2 years.

OK. Ubuntu as a release cycle of six months, so that the Debian packages are unfortunately often outdated from Ubuntu's perspective.

> 
> And *honestly* since when was it sooooo urgent to have always the newest
> and shiniest LaTeX package?

When someone posts a question somewhere about LaTeX, the first answer is often "your TeX system is outdated." I agree that requiring every user to install the newest TeX system is not realistic, but then these answers should be avoided. But unfortunately, authors can only support the newest version.

>> For example, in 2009, Ubuntu still had TL 2007,
> 
> This is wrong. You have to say *WHICH* version of Ubuntu.
> It always depends on the release.

For example 9.10:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090616135158/http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/tex/

> 
>> and now they still have TL 2009. Since the TL package maintainers are usually volunteers, this makes it hard to support the Ubuntu packages upstream.
> 
> So are the Debian packagers, namely me, acting both upstrream and
> as Debian packager.
> 
> If not more people step forward and actually *help* then it will be
> always like that. I simply have limited time and need to support
> the released versions in Debian with fixes, plus write tlmgr.

I think that often the old versions are fine, and package authors should at least try to support the versions that were present in the last two TL releases. I don't think that recommending Linux users to always install TL manually is a good idea.