Different Linux distributions tend to package different versions of LyX. This can cause a bit of a headache since these packaged versions are usually not forward compatible with later major released (e.g. are not LyX 1.5.5.).
Two things might make this a little easier. 1) LyX 1.6.x could use ~/.lyx16 instead of ~/.lyx so that it is easy to use two versions of LyX. 2) Offer to download the latest version of lyx2lyx if LyX version is too new. The only disadvantage I can see to 1) is that it uses a little more space. But even if we had ~/.lyx13 through ~/.lyx16 in our homedir we would still have less than 1MB of space used. People who care about 1MB of space could probably know enough to delete an unused directory. 2) This has three potential disadvantages. First it Requires net access, however if you received an incompatible file, you likely recieved it over the net. Secondly, it requires storing a redundant copy of lyx2lyx in the users homedir. Again, lyx2lyx requires well under 1MB of space. Thirdly it means that we have software not managed by dpkg etc. However, the version in the homedir is only needed when a LyX file would refuse to load. Since lyx2lyx is fairly independent of LyX, it seem unlikely that there would be significant interactions. Non of these disadvantages seem significant compared to not being able to collaborate effectively with people using different versions of LyX. worse than not being able to open a file. -- John C. McCabe-Dansted PhD Student University of Western Australia
