[tex-live] volunteer to implement lcab compression?

[Sebastian Rahtz]

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 09:30:12PM +0200, Olaf Weber wrote:
> It seems to me we can simply 'chmod +x' everything in texmf*/scripts.
> The problematic cases are non-windows executables that are (i)
> distributed in CAB files, and (ii) in odd locations.
> 
> It seems to me we'd be using 'tar.gz' or 'zip' for the unix binaries,
> which ought to leave only the scripts in texmf/web2c as odd ones out.
> Correct?

Its easy enough for me to store .tar.gz for all the binary
packages, and .cab for all the text packages. Well, fiddly,
but doable. Fabrice will just ignore the .tar.gz anyway.
Adding a chmod +x for the scripts directory is OK. 

the ownership of files will presumably default to the 
person doing the install

the underlying question is: are we letting the Microsoft dog wag
the tail here? the only reason for using .cab is that Fabrice
says he wants to switch the MSI stuff, which only groks cab.
so the rest of the world suffers along.

if we don't find a resolution relatively easily, we'll have to
revert to the backup strategy, which is to not have a Windows installer
on the compressed CD at all. That would give us

  Live DVD: for everyone
  Compressed CD: for *Nix, and for Windows folk willing to hand unpack
  Extra CD: MikTeX

Or, indeed, forget about the compressed CD, and deliver just
MiKTeX and TL on a DVD.

Or, omit the compressed CD, and revert to a demo CD
with an even smaller subset.

Geez. Let's not start that discussion again this week?


Sebastian