[XeTeX] Getting vinculum in fractions with Asana Math and unicode-math when compiled with xelatex

[ulrik.vieth at arcor.de]

> So - just to clarify for someone who's not aware of the mechanics of how 
> new versions are made and rolled out - when is this fix likely to make 
> it into a binary that is accessible? And, when it /is/ available, will 
> it be possible simply to replace a single xetex binary in the tex tree, 
> or will there be wider implications than that?

> Sorry for the (probably stupid) question, but I am keenly interested in 
> this - I have been stubbing my toes against this error for some fair time!

Well, this is actually not a stupid question, but a complicated story:

First, there is a repository for the master sources of xetex which is 
maintained by Jonathan Kew himself (and probably nobody else but him).
In the last few months Jonathan hasn't been responding very much, 
so it is unknown when we can get the fix into the master sources.

Then, there are another repositories for the master sources of major
distributions such as TeXLive (or MikTeX or others), which contain the 
combined sources of xetex, luatex, pdftex, metapost and everything else

Usually, binaries for TeXLive are issued only once per year when a new 
distribution on DVD is prepared. There also exists an online update
mechanism for TeXLive, but it is usually used for macros and fonts only.
Technically, it could be used for updates of binaries as well, but there
are difficulties of getting binaries compiled for many different platforms.

Finally, there is a distribution called as TLContrib, which contains sort-of 
unoffically add-ons and updates to TeXLive, including newer versions of 
cutting-edge binaries and packages such as luatex, metapost or context.

While it may still take 6-9 months beofre you can get a new edition 
of TeX Live, there may be a better chances to get updated binaries 
from TL Contrib earlier (http://tlcontrib.metatex.org/).

As I said, I have forwarded the patch to te relevant maintainers,
hoping to get it included in TLContrib quickly and in TeXLive eventually. 
Unfortunately, there are currently some reservations about accepting 
the patch before it has been included in the upstream master sources 
of xetex as well (to avoid future problems of merging the sources).  

So much for the current status.
Regards, Ulrik