Re: Re: IMPORTANT: (possibly) incompatible Change

[Karsten Heymann <karsten.heymann@blue-cable.net>]

Hi Ulf,

Ulf Stegemann <ulf-news@zeitform.de> writes:
> However, I'd strongly oppose to the claim that compatibility to the
> latex compiler (vs. pdftex) is an academic problem. I know about
> several LaTeX based systems that have to use the latex compiler simply
> because pdftex can't handle eps graphics and converting those images
> isn't feasible. So, while in the current case there's no compatibility
> issue, I think it's reasonable to support both compilers.

Are there still any systems in the wild that don't use pdftex for
latex/dvi mode? Don't be fooled by the name, when pdftex is called in
latex mode, it behaves exactly like the old tex/etex compiler and
generates the same dvi documents, supports dvips and so on. For example
on my Ubuntu 9.10 system 'latex -version' says:

kheymann@ara:~$ latex -version
pdfTeX using libpoppler 3.141592-1.40.3-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.6)
kpathsea version 3.5.6
Copyright 2007 Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Kpathsea is copyright 2007 Karl Berry and Olaf Weber.
There is NO warranty.  Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX using libpoppler copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX using libpoppler source.
Primary author of pdfTeX using libpoppler: Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Kpathsea written by Karl Berry, Olaf Weber, and others.

Compiled with libpng 1.2.37; using libpng 1.2.37
Compiled with zlib 1.2.3.3; using zlib 1.2.3.3
Compiled with libpoppler version 0.12.0


Or did I misunderstand your remark?

Yours
Karsten