ConTeXt in TeX Live

[Mikael Sundqvist]

Hi Max,

On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 8:48 AM Max Chernoff <tex at maxchernoff.ca> wrote:
>
> 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).

Yes, this was coordinated between Hans and Karl as far as I understand.

>
> 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
>

One can just unzip, no need to run the installer.

> 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/

This could, as Mojca pointed out, be problematic.

>
> > 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>

Indeed, you are right he was asked (and that was the time of being
baffled). And parts of his answer was:

* texlive is a distribution and decides what goes in.
* "personally i see tex live as the yearly stable snapshot ... which also
gives me the freedom to move on; are you sure that updating will not
break something? do users expect such an update?"
* "if that works it's fine for me ... thanks for the effort you put in
it" <- this refers a bit back to point 1.

I never saw an answer to that mail though.

>
> > 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.

ConTeXt moved away from the "current + beta" approach to "the yearly
TeX Live is current and inbetween there are betas". This was done to
simplify. Maybe Hans now needs to reintroduce the current+beta...

>
> 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.

If you by unsupported means that they do not get new context releases,
then yes. But that is not different from users not getting new
luatex/pdftex engines either.

>
> 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.

I think Hans was quite happy with having one version per year, as it
was. The amount of work in February was not large. And if there would
have been no changes, no more work... Now, he is worried there will be
more work.

>
> > 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

That is good.

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

Maybe, but it fits well with open source and distributing sources. And
it is actually very easy to compile (even I can do it), and if there
are users on not so common platforms, they have the chance.

>
> > 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.

This is disputable. In the past, Hans sometimes made a new release for
some specific user to test something, or to be synced during BachoTeX,
to give a few example.

>
> 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.

Has this been a real problem?

>
> 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 have a feeling Hans will not do that. Maybe at least delay the
update by, say, five or ten days. That way, obvious problems that get
reported quickly will have the chance to be fixed.

>
> > 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.

Maybe most important is that it is clear to users that ConTeXt in TL
is not anymore a yearly snapshot.

I appreciate the work you put into this, Max. Hopefully it will work
out well in the end.

/Mikael