We have the following bugfix for the 20021216 pretest. I don't want to make a new release just because of that (on the other hand, I don't want to let you be uninformed about this bug, too). The file exists in the texk/kpathsea directory.
Thomas diff -u -r1.13 -r1.14 --- tex-make.c 14 Dec 2002 12:31:17 -0000 1.13 +++ tex-make.c 17 Dec 2002 07:09:36 -0000 1.14 @@ -230,6 +230,7 @@ } close(childerr); } + /* FIXME: We could/should close all other file descriptors as well. */ /* exec -- on failure a call of _exit(2) it is the only option */ if (execvp(args[0], args)) perror(args[0]); @@ -283,6 +284,8 @@ /* Free the name if we're not returning it. */ if (fn != ret) free (fn); + } else { + ret = NULL; } } #endif