Message-ID:  <8257.1304518019@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date:         Wed, 4 May 2011 15:06:59 +0100
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              <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
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From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns@CL.CAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Policy regarding engine specific fixes
To: LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de
In-Reply-To:  Your message of Wed, 04 May 2011 21:36:28 +0930. 
              <5BCAF3F0-F09B-4E5A-BC8C-FFC17987F603@gmail.com>
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Status: R

Will Robertson <wspr81@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> On 04/05/2011, at 9:02 PM, Philipp Stephani wrote:
> 
> > coming from a comment in the question
> > http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/17265, I wonder what the
> > policy of the LaTeX project is concerning packages that work only
> > under pdfTeX or make some assumptions that are not valid in the
> > newer engines. Is it intended that such necessary fixes will be
> > included in the packages or in the kernel, or will the fixes have to
> > be provided in separate packages? 
> 
> Speaking for myself, I guess it largely depends. We've spoken here
> before about adding a switch to deactivate inputenc in
> XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX but no proposals ever got off the ground.

there's time enough for that, i would guess.  afaict, karl's not yet
making moves towards putting tl2011 together, which is when we said we
would release a new latex version.

> As for
> amsmath, that's still maintained by the AMS, and I believe they're
> currently working on an update to that at the moment -- it would be
> best to contact them directly. (I'm not sure who the best contact
> there would be.)

(the ams have a tech-support address.)

in answer to philipp's question i would doubt that the project has the
wherewithal to dictate how people should write things.  there were fine
words spoken, on these lines -- discussing programming style, mostly, at
the introduction of latex 2e.  those fine words were, by and large,
ignored; and back then the only "different" engine we had in play was
tex 2.*

so my rule of thumb would be, fixes _should_ be present in packages or
the kernel, as appropriate, but one should accept that occasionally a
"tidy-up" package is going to be needed.

robin