Re: The catastrophe has arrived.

[David Kastrup]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> Ubuntu 13.10 is delivered with LilyPond 2.16.2 built using a Metapost
> version of 1.802.  Consequently, all the included fonts look like crap.
>
> <URL:http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=3539>
>
> Of course, this was sort of predictable.  Would we have been in time if
> we had immediately created a backport of the configure patch and named
> the result 2.16.3?
>
> I have no idea.
>
> Can everybody using Ubuntu 13.10 and seeing this problem (a loopy treble
> clef and incomplete flags) please mark this issue as affecting him?
>
> <URL:https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lilypond/+bug/1243777>
>
> This can seriously affect LilyPond's reputation.  Anybody putting
> together a comparison of various typesetting programs under GNU/Linux
> will more likely be using this version than any other.

Should we create a release of 2.16.3 which only differs from 2.16.2 in
cherry-picking the autoconf change making it refuse to compile with
buggy versions of Metapost?

It would seem somewhat pointless to recreate, upload and offer all the
binary distributions (which should be close to bit-identical unless we
updated GUB since then), but then that might be the path of least
resistance.

Given that "stock" TeXlive2013 is broken and TeXlive2014 will appear
only next fall, a version of 2.16.3 that refuses to compile with broken
versions of Metapost could possibly thwart a non-zero number of future
additional catastrophes.  What do you think?  Should we do that?

-- 
David Kastrup