[XeTeX] [arXiv #128410] Re: XeLaTeX generated pdf metadata

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Tue, 23 Sep 2014, Ross Moore wrote:
> It is the insistence on being able to reproduce the PDF
> *automatically from source* that is where the problem lies.

>From reading Norbert's Web blog, it appears that that's also an issue for
Debian packaging of TeX-related software.  Debian has a formal requirement
for everything that can possibly be built from source, to be built from
source, and it's not practical to do that automatically with many
TeX-related documentation files.  My own horoscop LaTeX package, whose
documentation requires many megabytes of astrological software (free, but
not typically packaged by Linux distributions) to compile properly, is
only one example.  I think there are other packages that exist
specifically to support expensive commercial products and require those
products in order to compile, notwithstanding that the results of
compilation are free to distribute.  This kind of thing is definitely a
problem; I'm not sure it is TeX's problem.

As for arXiv, what bothers me is that in the case of XeLaTeX, they will
accept neither the source code *nor* the compiled PDF.  All an author can
do is circumvent the rules by lying in the document metadata, or else go
through contortions to compile a special arXiv-only version with some
other software.  I found this page helpful in my efforts to do that:
   http://member.ipmu.jp/yuji.tachikawa/cjk-on-arxiv/

-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                 People before principles.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/