[tex-live] query about archives

[cfrees at imapmail.org]

On Wed 10th Sep, 2008 at 18:16, Karl Berry seems to have written:

>    recipe:
> Added.
>
>    glosstex:
>    bibtools:  [I assume you mean bibtool]

No. I did actually mean bibtools:
 	http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/utils/bibtools/

> Can't easily add random compiled programs.  They need a standard
> configure script and Makefile[.am].  We can't take that on.  If you want
> to write to the authors, great.
>
>    bibexport:
> Ok, but that combination of wrapping a shell script into a dtx file is
> something our ctan2tl process isn't ready to deal with.  I'll put it on
> the list for later.
>
>    de-macro:
> 1) We already have detex, does this do a better job?

I was really just making a list - not especially recommending anything
one way or another.

> 2) The author says the Python script would need "adjusting" for Windows.
>
> 	licence: Academic Free Licence 2.1
> 		(can only find version 3.0 in English right now,
> 		though, so I don't know what it says)
>
> It's free (but suboptimal/not recommended) -- gnu.org/l/license-list.html.
>
>
> In general, programs and scripts require a heck of a lot more work than
> the usual (La)TeX packages.  Significantly expanding TL's coverage of
> them will require new volunteers ... (like you? :)

I'm not sure I would be very much use. I think I write OK bug reports
but not very much else, unfortunately. I can't program - only write
shell scripts. Not even that on Windows. And I figured out how to
install various fonts for TeX. But that's not much use either unless
somebody is interested in an alternative to lmoderno or something.

I did look at your pages on contributing but, issues concerning my
potential usefulness or lack thereof aside, helping seemed to require
rather more disk space that I have to spare. I've got about 16 G but
need at least 12-16 G (15-20%) to keep OS X happy. Even now, my spare
capacity sometimes drops below 10 G (which I really should avoid but
don't always manage to).

That was a few days ago, at least, but as far as I could tell, it 
isn't possible to do much without a significant chunk of free space. 
Is that understanding correct?

Anyway, I'll stop publishing my list. It really was only intended as
information but that's not the point.

- cfr

>
> Thanks,
> karl
>