[tex-live] verbatimcopy package missing

[Zdenek Wagner]

2008/9/19 George N. White III <gnwiii at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:44 AM, Rolf Niepraschk <Rolf.Niepraschk at ptb.de> wrote:
>> Norbert Preining schrieb:
>> ...
>>>
>>> Still, there is CTAN, people can get whatever they miss from there.
>>
>> Will be exist non-free TeXLive packages for download from CTAN in the
>> future (similar to "getnonfreefonts")?
>
> Now that there is a package manager, it becomes possible to consider
> adding support for multiple repositories, so you could have test packages,
> nonfree packages, or even local (site-specific, for things like a thesis format
> and letterhead).
>
> The question of what is "free" gets complicated.  The variety of
> restrictions is
> unbounded, and it takes a lot of work to ensure that stuff is a) properly
> classified, and b) that users understand what they can and can't do.
>
> Organizations that rely on TeX often have macros that aren't appropriate for
> CTAN, e.g., LaTeX classes specific to a report series that contain logos, fonts,
> and design elements ("look and feel") that should not used externally -- I could
> give you the macros, but then I'd have to kill you -- to guard against someone
> creating bogus "official looking" government reports giving the inventory of
> nuclear weapons in Switzerland and Belize.   Having such material in a local
> site package repository has advantages 1) it is easier to manage installations,
> and 2) potentially making it easier for users to tell what is free and
> what is not.
>
No, it need not be that bad. I have developed a class file and a set
of packages for one journal (it is not yet ready for distribution).
The purpose is to make life for editors easier. The editors will use
XeLaTeX with fonts from AdobeAcrobat. If the fonts are not found, the
class will use Latin Modern instead so that the article in the final
form will be visually different which is acceptable. Anyway the
editors have the right to make even modifications in the text (after
discussion with the authors). The package even works in a great many
cases with normal LaTeX. The first page of each article contains a
logo and the editors do not like to distribute it. Soution is simple:
if you start the article with \documentclass{pbml}, the macros will
just put a rectangle of the size of the logo with the text LOGO to the
first page. The editors will then change the first line to
\documentclass[logo]{pbml} and the macros will put the real logo
there. Thus if you have DejaVu + Acrobat Reader, you can generate
exactlyu the same layout but without the logo. Such a package can be
released under LPPL without no risk.

> While it seems simple to just set a policy for what should be in TeX
> Live, no one
> policy will make more than a few people completely happy.  It helps a
> lot to have
> a limited set of licenses (GPL, LPPL, etc), but authors need to
> realize 1) even if they
> aren't completely happy with a particular license, it is a kindness to packagers
> and users if they adopt a standard license despite those reservations, and 2)
> the world is stuck with the choices they make long after they are gone.
>
> Item 1) above can be restated: If you don't make things easy for people
> organizing distributions, your package risks languishing near the bottom of
> the pile of things to do sometime in the future.   Adding support for
> more license
> categories just means that more things get packaged so end up on users' lists
> of things to do later.
>
> --
> George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
>



-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz