[tex-live] Amended draft letter (was : install-tl-windows.bat unavailable in Microsoft Store)

Tue Dec 11 14:59:36 CET 2018

út 11. 12. 2018 v 14:49 odesílatel Siep Kroonenberg <siepo at bitmuis.nl> napsal:
>
> On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 12:54:57PM +0000, Philip Taylor wrote:
> > <html>
> >   <head>
> >     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
> >   </head>
> >   <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
> >     Draft letter; comments welcomed.<br>
> >     <br>
> >     Dear <whoever> — <br>
> >     <br>
> >     I write on behalf of the TeX User Group, and on behalf of
> >     (literally) millions of TeX users worldwide.  TeX  is a typesetting
> >     system without equal, created by Professor Donald E. Knuth in 1978
> >     in order to allow him to re-typeset <i>The Art of Computer
> >       Programming </i>to the same standards as those achieved when the
> >     first edition was published using traditional hot-lead technology.
> >     Over the next four years Professor Knuth re-wrote substantial parts
> >     of TeX and released TeX version 2, to be followed about a decade
> >     later by version 3, the version almost universally used today.
> >     Almost since its inception, TeX has run on Microsoft platforms —
> >     Eberhard Mattes wrote emTeX for MS/DOS, others developed versions
> >     for Microsoft Windows, and until now there have been no significant
> >     difficulties in supporting each new version of Windows as it was
> >     released.<br>
> >     <br>
> >     But recently, an <i>impasse</i> has been reached, with the
> >     announcement of Windows 10 "S-mode".  As you know, far better than
> >     we, S-mode is intended to lock down Windows such that no program
> >     that does not come directly from the Microsoft Store can be
> >     installed and run.  Having consulted the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
> > href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-10-s-planning">technical
> >       guideline</a>s describing the constraints placed on a program
> >     which is to run in S-mode, TeX's development/implementation team are
> >     very concerned that because (for example) TeX makes widespread use
> >     of CMD.exe, that in itself is sufficient reason for TeX to be
> >     disbarred.<br>
> >     <br>
> >     We would therefore be very grateful if you could nominate someone
> >     within Microsoft with whom we could liaise directly, with a view to
> >     ascertaining how these obstacles to the inclusion of TeX (and its
> >     adjunct programs) in the Microsoft Store portfolio might best be
> >     overcome.<br>
>
> Answers usually come from people working in the field, not from
> higher-ups.
>
> Your mail suggests that someone is already spending time on this,
> has downloaded, installed and explored Visual Studio and other
> resources, and given thought to strategies how to circumvent the
> store restrictions, and browsed e.g technet- and stackoverflow sites
> for answers and workarounds; and that this someone would be willing
> to co-sign this mail.
>
Yes, there are Windows related blogs and discussion groups, not only
stackoverflow. Although not being a Windows programmer I sometimes
have to create a compiled program for Windows and Google helps me to
find the relevant information. People in these groups will assist for
free. I doubt that Microsoft will ever offer free assistence to make
TeX Live for S-mode. They can offer paid support but it will most
likely be far beyond the TUG budget. They offer such support to
commercial partners. Such a partner does not hesitate to pay million
USD because they will then get a few billions as a profit.

> --
> Siep Kroonenberg


Zdeněk Wagner
http://ttsm.icpf.cas.cz/team/wagner.shtml
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz