[tex-live] is TEXINPUTS obsolete?

[Karl Berry]

    I've seen a couple references online ([1], [2]) that say the use of
    the environment variable TEXINPUTS is obsolete. 

The people responsible for distros' implementation of TeX can do
anything and we (TUG, TeX Live, etc.) have no control over this.

    Is TEXINPUTS obsolete or deprecated? 
    Can I rely on it continuing to work?

As far as the "native" TeX programs in TeX Live are concerned, TEXINPUTS
is not obsolete, not deprecated, and will continue to work as it does
today for at least as long as I have any say about it (and probably much
longer).

karl