[tex-live] Stable vs. Unstable/Testing Update Repositories?

[C.M. Connelly]

I'm wondering if there could be more than one update path, with
(at least) one kept fairly stable (with tested, known-working
packages, scripts, and documentation) and one that is updated with
the very latest and greatest from CTAN.  It might even be worth
having a very stable (bugfixes-only) branch, a known-working
branch with the newest safe code, and a cutting-edge,
latest-and-greatest branch.

I have a colleague who naively updated his TeX Live 2009 install,
which happily updated him to the beta version of geometry.sty,
which broke beamer, which he needed to compile his slides for
teaching later that day.

Most of these problems get sorted out fairly quickly, and most of
them can be worked around or temporarily fixed by a skilled user,
but for faculty on a deadline, they can be serious problems.

As I have a department full of faculty who might easily get
themselves into trouble on their laptops, I'm a bit less
enthusiastic about rolling out TL 2009 than I might otherwise be.
I'm not ready to flip the desktop machines over to TL 2009 for the
same reasons.

   Claire

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  Claire Connelly                              cmc at math.hmc.edu
  System Administrator                           (909) 621-8754
  Department of Mathematics                 Harvey Mudd College
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