Will Robertson wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Joseph Wright
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> At least for the kernel and associated tools, everything is in a version
>> control system.  So it is not really that hard to get hold of a given
>> version if one needs to.  The problem of versions mainly applies to
>> other packages, and that is very much down to the package authors (as
>> was discussed at length on c.t.t recently).
> 
> Indeed. I was thinking of something a little more organised, which
> would obviously involve CTAN & TeXLive keeping old versions in their
> repository as well. (Which I think they've discussed in the past.)
> 
> Erm, so in conclusion: nothing that is going to happen any time soon!

No, I think that is pretty clear!  However, at some point the various
expl3 packages plus packages using them will probably need to move from
/macros/latex/contrib to somewhere else (lets say /macros/latex3). I
guess when that happens it might be worth having better guidelines on
version releases.  For example:

"Previous versions of LaTeX3 packages remain available on CTAN. The
typical directory structure of a LaTeX3 contributed package should be:

/macros/latex3/<package>/<version>

with the current release made available at:

/macros/latex3/<package>/current

which will link to the latest release.

Distributions are encouraged to include these depreciated versions but
*outside* of the usual texmf location, for example:

<texmf>/archive/latex3/<package>/<version>

In this way, older versions of packages will remain available while
avoiding the danger of loading the incorrect version of the package."

That would, I think, solve the "old versions" issue without being too
complicated to administer.
-- 
Joseph Wright