[tex-live] package updates still possible?

[Robin Fairbairns]

Torsten Schuetze <torsten.schuetze at siemens.com> wrote:

> [...] However, I found some outdated packages
> 
> powerdot:  v1.3 is in TeXLive, current is
> \ProvidesClass{powerdot}
>   [2005/12/10 v1.4 powerdot presentation class (HA,CE)]
> 
> It can be found under
> http://stuwww.uvt.nl/~hendri/Downloads/Files/powerdot.zip
> 
> Unfortunately, on CTAN is only the old version 1.3

one may reasonably assume that hendri hasn't completed testing v1.4;
he's normally pretty keen on keeping the ctan copy up-to-date.  i've got
to mail him today anyway, so i'll ask.

> The next lines are quoted from my mail last year. Just change TL 2005
> beta to TL 2006-07 beta and it is still valid:
> 
> > seminar.bg2: TL 2005 beta contains 1997/11/20 v1.6
> >              v1.7 1998/05/22 can be found at 
> > www.tug.org/applications/Seminar/seminar.bg2
> > 
> >              v2.1 2002/05/31 !! can be found inside
> > http://www.tug.org/applications/Seminar/SemDemos.tar.gz
> 
> Staszek's reply last year was:
> 
> > It is not updated on CTAN. Sorry, we cannot scan the whole world
> > and CTAN *is* and *should be* the definitive source for any update
> > in the distributions.
> 
> Yes, I know this. I wrote to the authors last year to update their
> packages on CTAN. But no reaction. So, what should we do? Ignore the bug
> reports, see e.g. Debian bug Bug#360612
> http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-tetex-maint@lists.debian.org/msg25468.html
> 
> or add these files to the TeXLive release.
> 
> In addition to seminar.bg2 there exists a seminar.bg3 posted in a
> newsgroup
> http://groups.google.com/group/fr.comp.text.tex/msg/e1e905508b0de896?output=gplain
> 
> seminar.bg2 and seminar.bg3 are widely used. Shouldn't we include these
> files to TeXLive even when there are not on CTAN? For simplicity I will
> attach both files.
[snipped]

given that .bg3 was posted in a more-or-less private place, one wonders
how it comes to be "widely used".

anyway, it would be good to know who you wrote to as "authors".
unfortunately, the package is under lppl, and one can't just change it
without the authors' say so.  if you had acted on the fact that the
authors weren't responding, six months ago, we might by now be in a
position to reassign maintainership.

but you didn't, so we're stuck.

Robin Fairbairns

For the CTAN team