ConTeXt in TeX Live

[Max Chernoff]

Hi Mikael,

On Mon, 2025-06-09 at 07:19 +0200, Mikael Sundqvist wrote:
> (I'm not subscribed to the texlive list, so I hope this will work out OK)

No problem, I'll keep you CC'd.

> Those changes do occur in the "work" branch anyways, and to the
> "normal" ConTeXt user they are no big deal, since they typically do
> not change life for them.

Yes, but the problem there is that the "main" branch hasn't had a
release since 2025-02-19 (2.11.06), yet the initial release of TL25
contained LuaMetaTeX 2.11.07 (level 20250226), and the ConTeXt
Standalone distribution contains LuaMetaTeX 2.11.07 (but level 20250427
this time).

For most of the platforms

    amd64-freebsd
    i386-linux
    universal-darwin
    windows
    x86_64-darwinlegacy
    x86_64-linux
    x86_64-linuxmusl

I'm just copying the binaries that you get when you run

    $ mtxrun --script install --platform=$PLATFORM --update

from the Standalone Distribution, so that should guarantee that those
binaries match the TEXMF files. But for some of the less common
architectures that are built by the Build Farm but not supported by the
Standalone installer

    aarch64-linux
    armhf-linux
    i386-freebsd
    i386-solaris
    x86_64-solaris

I'm instead downloading the binaries from the "work" branch:

    https://build.contextgarden.net/dl/luametatex/work/

> And I must say that I am a bit surprised about how this
> happened. Hans was not involved or asked if it would be a good idea to
> update ConTeXt also during the year, the initiative came from
> elsewhere.

Hans was definitely asked (and you were CC'd)

    From: Max Chernoff <tex at maxchernoff.ca>
    To: Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org>, Hans Hagen <j.hagen at freedom.nl>, Mikael Sundqvist <mickep at gmail.com>
    Subject: ConTeXt packaging in TeX Live
    Date: 2025-05-13 05:03:20 AM
    Message-Id: <51a5183b302f198a44bd44ef3334df4c65f64477.camel at maxchernoff.ca>

> It is indeed a bit surprising, since the TexLive policy
> seems to (have) be(en) not to update binaries during the year.

The official policy is a bit more nuanced than that---binaries built as
a part of TeX Live cannot be updated throughout the year, only because
it is unfair to ask our volunteer builders to rebuild more than once per
year. However, this doesn't apply to LuaMetaTeX since (1) it has never
been built as a part of TeX Live (cmake vs autotools), and (2) upstream
provides its own binaries, so we don't need to bother our builders.

FWIW, Biber (a very popular LaTeX bibliography tool) is distributed the
exact same way.

> For
> this reason, Hans has put some extra effort for the releases that go
> into TeXLive (early spring). The other few releases during the year
> could maybe be considered beta. They usually work very well, and in
> particular, they work OK for the usual ConTeXt standalone users, who
> somehow know that if there is a problem somewhere they send an email
> to the ConTeXT mailing list, and things get sorted. That way, new
> stuff also has the chance to be tested a bit before ending up in
> TeXLive.

Right, but the problem here is that after the single February/March code
push, the ConTeXt in TeX Live is completely unsupported. So if users
find and report bugs, and then Hans fixes them, it could take up to a
year before the users actually get the fixes, if they use TeX Live.

My hope is that copying the contents of the ConTeXt Standalone
Distribution into TeX Live will actually *lessen* Hans' workload, since
then there will only ever be a single "latest" version, regardless of
how you've installed ConTeXt.

> To me the fetching and fixing that is going on now sounds a bit
> fragile, but maybe Max has sorted it out.

The build script looks fairly intimidating

    https://github.com/gucci-on-fleek/context-packaging/blob/master/scripts/make-release.sh

but it's really not doing very much, so I'm hoping that it's fairly
stable. But I update my TeX Live installation daily, and run ConTeXt
most days (although less in the summer), so I should hopefully be able
to catch any major issues quickly.

> It also seems that in
> TeXLive the luametatex source is stripped. That source would otherwise
> have been synced with the ConTeXt version (if taken from the zip), and
> users would at least have been able to compile it and that way have a
> binary that matches.

Before these updates, the LuaMetaTeX source wasn't included in TeX Live,
but it is now:

    $ unzip -l $(kpsewhich --expand-var='$TEXMFDIST')/source/context/base/luametatex-20250427.zip
    Archive:  /usr/local/texlive/2025/texmf-dist/source/context/base/luametatex-20250427.zip
      Length      Date    Time    Name
    ---------  ---------- -----   ----
         9444  04-28-2025 12:29   CMakeLists.txt
         2743  04-28-2025 12:29   CMakeSettings.json
         2699  04-28-2025 12:29   build.cmd
         4346  04-28-2025 12:29   build.sh
         2083  04-28-2025 12:29   build.txt

But I also think that you are vastly overestimating the number of users
who are willing/able to compile their own binaries :).

> This might also have consequences for the ConTeXt standalone users,
> since Hans probably feels now that he has to be more careful when
> doing these intermediate releases for them, knowing that they will go
> into TeXLive.

I don't think that that's really necessary---if it's stable enough to be
released to be released to the users of the ConTeXt Standalone
Distribution, then it should be stable enough for TeX Live.

The problem has been that in the past, ConTeXt has had some bugs (as all
software does), and then Hans fixes them really quickly, but since
ConTeXt was only updated in TeX Live once per year, users never got the
bug fixes, which gave them the (mistaken) impression that ConTeXt is
buggy.

But if there are some particularly experimental updates, feel free to
email me and I can ensure that they won't make it into TeX Live.

> I understand that Max put a lot of effort in this and that some people
> are happy about it. But I wonder if it really was the right thing to
> do.

Well ConTeXt is Hans' (and your) project, so if you insist, I can revert
all these changes. I'd definitely rather not though---I'm not claiming
that this new update strategy is perfect, or even better for all users,
but I personally think that it's an improvement on the prior status quo
for most users.

Thanks,
-- Max