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Message-ID:  <48D228C7.7070401@morningstar2.co.uk>
Date:         Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:09:11 +0100
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
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From: Joseph Wright <joseph.wright@MORNINGSTAR2.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Array and amstext
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
In-Reply-To:  <27990a880809180109i362c84f3p5599a9ea2cfe5659@mail.gmail.com>
Precedence: list
Status: R

Will Robertson wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Joseph Wright
> <joseph.wright@morningstar2.co.uk> wrote:
>> At least for the kernel and associated tools, everything is in a version
>> control system.  So it is not really that hard to get hold of a given
>> version if one needs to.  The problem of versions mainly applies to
>> other packages, and that is very much down to the package authors (as
>> was discussed at length on c.t.t recently).
> 
> Indeed. I was thinking of something a little more organised, which
> would obviously involve CTAN & TeXLive keeping old versions in their
> repository as well. (Which I think they've discussed in the past.)
> 
> Erm, so in conclusion: nothing that is going to happen any time soon!

No, I think that is pretty clear!  However, at some point the various
expl3 packages plus packages using them will probably need to move from
/macros/latex/contrib to somewhere else (lets say /macros/latex3). I
guess when that happens it might be worth having better guidelines on
version releases.  For example:

"Previous versions of LaTeX3 packages remain available on CTAN. The
typical directory structure of a LaTeX3 contributed package should be:

/macros/latex3/<package>/<version>

with the current release made available at:

/macros/latex3/<package>/current

which will link to the latest release.

Distributions are encouraged to include these depreciated versions but
*outside* of the usual texmf location, for example:

<texmf>/archive/latex3/<package>/<version>

In this way, older versions of packages will remain available while
avoiding the danger of loading the incorrect version of the package."

That would, I think, solve the "old versions" issue without being too
complicated to administer.
-- 
Joseph Wright