[OS X TeX] TeXpad (LaTeX iPad editor app) dev's blog post on Mac OS X appstore sandboxing

[Herbert Schulz]

On Apr 4, 2012, at 1:53 PM, William Adams wrote:

> On Apr 4, 2012, at 2:00 PM, Richard Koch wrote:
> 
>> It MIGHT be possible to include LaTeX inside the sandbox of an App Store app,
>> distributing the app and the command line programs together, as Apple now does
>> with XCode. 
>> 
>> However, I don't think that would be permitted because of the GPL software license
>> under which many components of TeX are released. Note that the Free Software
>> Foundation doesn't allow GPL apps on the iPad for that reason.
> 
> There was a recent post on texhax by a gentleman who had put together a BSD-licensed TeX distribution:
> 
> http://www.kergis.com/en/kertex.html
> 
> So one could do a TeX editor for the iPad by:
> 
> - putting kertex inside of it
> - modifying the TeX editor so that it uses document ``bundles'' (so that one dropped a folder which contains all supporting files for the document)
> 
> William


Howdy,

So every document (bundle) will need to have all the fonts, packages, etc., that I can now use over and over again. One of the weakest points about using bundles is total lack, by design, of reuse-ability of packages, etc., to eliminate duplication.

I remember there being discussion of bundles and there even was a version of iTeXMac that used bundles but it all dies on the vine as far as I know.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)