pTeX: request to integrate patches into texlive and retire the teTeX-based distribution

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

The pTeX port is currently based on unmaintained/obsolete and horribly outdated tetex distribution which saw the last release in 2006 (see ​http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/obsolete/systems/unix/teTeX/3.0/distrib and ​http://www.tug.org/tetex/):

I (Thomas Esser) have decided not to make new releases of teTeX any more (May 2006). The information below might get out of date as time goes by. I suggest anybody interested in teTeX to join the TeX Live project.

and it's also based on a lot of other outdated software (dvipdfmx underwent a lot of changes recently for example). Last time when pTeX made any package updates was probably in March 2011 (r76924).

This means that:

• pTeX cannot be compiled with clang
• neither pTeX not tetex can be patched easily
• there are many unnecessary conflicts (see #39705) since pTeX provides copies of the same (but outdated) utilities that are already part of TeX Live and in most cases there is no need for a copy (if the utility from texlive-bin wasn't in direct conflict with pTeX)
• there are random other failures, like a failure to run doxygen (#26002)
• often duplicate patches are needed (pTeX/dvipdfmx-clang-%2339334.diff vs. texlive-bin/patch-svn31700-dvipdfmx.diff for example)
• it makes supporting pTeX a lot more difficult

These tradeoffs were needed in the beginning, but now TeX Live offers an extensive support for pTeX with maintained and up-to-date dependencies. And if anything is missing, I believe that it could easily be added either upstream or as a really tiny set of additions or patches (rather than as a full-blown distribution conflicting with everything else).

Last time when I asked (July 2011), Takanori-san mentioned the following drawbacks of TeX Live for Japanese users:

• updmap(-sys) in TeXLive doesn't support KanjiMap extensions.
• xdvi in TeXLive doesn't support (=cannot preview) Japanese DVI which is produced by ptex.
• Due to its license issues, TeXLive doesn't contain pLaTeX 2.09 macros.
• It doesn't contain otf.sty (yet).

but there is a high chance that these problems are solved already; and if they are not, they all seem doable.

There are also a bunch of resources about pTeX integration in TeX Live and testing packages, see ​http://tutimura.ath.cx/ptexlive/?tlptexlive%A5%EA%A5%DD%A5%B8%A5%C8%A5%EA for example.

I would really like to request trying to figure out what exactly is missing in TeX Live packages and making sure that pTeX would only provide the missing pieces without conflicting with any of the TeX Live packages.

I'm willing to help solving packaging issues (I have some insight into how TeX Live works), but I'm not competent in understanding or solving Japanese-specific issues which is why the help from maintainer of pTeX is of crucial importance.

I also added Norbert to CC. He is fluent in Japanes, takes care pTeX integration into TeX Live and also makes TeX Live packages for Debian, so he should be able to help if there are any problems.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

This is what Norbert replied:

Short answer from Joshua Tree

since at least 2012 if not late 2011:

Last time when I asked (July 2011), Takanori-san mentioned the following drawbacks of TeX Live for Japanese users:

• updmap(-sys) in TeXLive doesn't support KanjiMap extensions.

it does

• xdvi in TeXLive doesn't support (=cannot preview) Japanese DVI which is produced by ptex.

the pxdvi patches are not applicable anymore due to upstream switch to freetype. so still valid. but from what I hear this is not serious

• Due to its license issues, TeXLive doesn't contain pLaTeX 2.09 macros.

??? not sure

• It doesn't contain otf.sty (yet).

it does, since long, and much more.

The current TeX Live is by far sufficient for practically all purposes as far as I know, and the binaries/source fixes loads of old bugs.

​http://tutimura.ath.cx/ptexlive/?tlptexlive%A5%EA%A5%DD%A5%B8%A5%C8%A5%EA for example.

maintained by me, and contains nothing but hiraprop package and binary fixes

Norbert (please forward my email to the tickets, I'm not allowed to post there)

[drkp (Dan Ports)]

Let me know if there's anything I can do. I'm happy to help with this, and it would certainly simplify things to reduce the number of supported tex distributions, but I can't say I understand what the issues (if any) are with existing ptex support in texlive.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

I'm in favor of reducing port conflicts and replacing older software with newer software. But I don't think I have anything to add to this ticket so I'll un-Cc.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

Replying to dports@…:

but I can't say I understand what the issues (if any) are with existing ptex support in texlive.

When pTeX package was created, pTeX wasn't even part of TeX Live. I suggested removing the pTeX port already in 2011 when there were still some issues in TL left. There is a chance that there are still some minor "sugars" in Takanori's package to aid the Japanese users (maybe some additional map files ...), but he probably knows best what is missing in TeX Live if anything.

My suggestion would be to merge those "sugars" or patches (if any of them are still needed) with TL and allow him to co-maintain TL in case that it would need some Japanese-related patches now or in future.

I just wanted to encourage making the changes ...

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

Just a "ping" to the maintainer: may I please ask you again to review the reasons for having a separate package for pTeX (conflicting with TeX Live), list them here, make a checklist if anything else needs to be done before TeX Live 2014 release and then remove pTeX as a separate package once TL 2014 package is out?

If any files cannot be included in TL due to licencing (or other) issues, they can still be added separately, but it will be easier to maintain just those files than a separate distribution.

Of course, doing the merge now with existing TL 2013 packages is also an option. I don't think that much is missing anyway.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

With TeX Live 2014 packages ante portas – can we now finally retire pTeX as a standalone package when switching to TL 2014?

Maybe Dan or someone else can "svn mv" the package to the user tree just in case (so that it would be easy to switch back if users will miss some of functionality).

If that is not acceptable, please speak now and explain what exactly is still missing in TL 2014, so that we can either fix that (or eventually decide that pTeX still covers some essential functionality which justifies its existence for a bit longer).

(Removing pTeX would also close tickets #26002, #39705.)

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

PING

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

takanori has retired. See #47537.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

And I retired the port in r137622. There has been no feedback for the last four years and a lot of development happened upstream in TeX Live during that time.

Let the Japanese users open new tickets in case that they still miss any of the functionality.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

Complete list of changes:

• r137622, r137623
• r137624: imaxima: remove the ptex variant
• r137625: lcdf-typetools: remove the pTeX variant
• r137628: ptex-sfmacros: adapted for TeX Live (untested)
• r137633: canna: depend on texlive, not pTeX
• r137634: lookup: replace dependency on pTeX with TeX Live

And a new ticket:

• #48060 canna: building the documentation fails during image conversion