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Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 16:21:20 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Wilson <cwilson AT ece DOT gatech DOT edu>
X-Sender: cwilson AT frontal DOT ibb DOT gatech DOT edu
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: fpTeX and Cygwin
In-Reply-To: <20010226120550.G1296@redhat.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.20.0102261612050.661-100000@frontal.ibb.gatech.edu>
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Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

> >
> >I am using MikTeX as well.  I use cygwin make & Makefiles, I build from
> >an rxvt/bash shell.  I edit using cygwin-XEmacs.  Since I'm on an NTFS
> >filesystem, I use hardlinks for various stuff -- but current symbolic
> >links don't work.  It's possible that the new symlink format MAY work --
> >dunno yet.
> 
> Jeez, why don't you think about CONTRIBUTING, instead of...
> 
> (checks From: line)
> 
> Oh.  Nevermind.  Sorry, Chuck.

Wel, at least my other contributed packages have earned me a little
indulgence. :-)

Seriously, though -- MikTeX is a *native* port of the TeX program.  You
might be able to build it using mingw -- but it would hardly be suited to
inclusion in the *cygwin* distribution.

These rumors of teTeX (a unix distro of TeX) working under cygwin are more
interesting.  If someone wants to port/build/support
teTeX-as-cygwin-package, as Corinna et al. have suggested, that's great.

(Note that TeX itself is written in CWEB, a langauge (invented?) used by
Knuth to write TeX in a self-documenting, 'literate programming'
style.  You need to first build/create a cygwin port of a CWEB
compiler...)

However, open source participation is primarily a need-driven system --
the old adage of "programmer scratching an itch".  My point above, was
that MikTeX scratches that itch *for me* very well; *I* don't need a
cygwin-port of TeX.  A true cygwin zealot, however, would withold that
information -- in hopes that some other poor sot would create a
cygwin-port of TeX.  

I'm not such a zealot -- I'm a pragmatist. If MikTeX works for me, great
-- I'll use it.  And I won't HIDE that fact in order to dupe someone else
into unnecessary work.  However, if someone out there -- GIVEN all of the
above information and KNOWING that MikTeX does a pretty good job for some
folks -- STILL wants to officially port teTeX or some other TeX variant to
cygwin:

Wonderful! Great! More power to them!  I'll stand right here and cheer.
:-)

--Chuck



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