TWG-TDS 0.101: the texmf root

[Paul Abrahams]

I'm concerned that the treatment of the texmf root as given in the TDS
conflicts with the Linux Filesystem Standard.  In that standard, the
files belonging to texmf appear in two places in the directory tree, one
for read-only data and one for modifiable data.  I certainly don't
suggest that the TDS provide for precisely that possibility, but the
treatment of texmf should be generalized so that the Linux arrangement
is valid.

I'd suggest that the material on page 6 might be something like this:

The roots of the TDS should be a set of one or more directories
containing only TeX-related materials.  We recommend that each such
directory have the filename "texmf" if possible.

If there is more than one texmf directory, the directories should be
treated for search purposes as though they were logically merged.  That
is to say, a search through all the texmf directories should yield the
same result as if their contents were all stored in a single texmf
directory. 

Paul Abrahams
Reply-To: abrahams@acm.org