Missing files in TL25

[Max Chernoff]

Hi Mikael,

On Thu, 2025-02-27 at 08:57 +0100, Mikael Sundqvist wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 11:10 PM Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:
> >
> >     1. The source of luametatex.
> >
> > As Max implied, it will ultimately be in Master/source like all the
> > other compiled sources. If you think users really need it in the
> > main distribution, I suppose I could be convinced to include it there.
>
> I do not have strong opinions here, but was merely surprised that it
> was taken out while some other c-files are there, but maybe there is a
> difference between an engine and some kind of helper program.

Well yes, there are some files that end in ".c", but if you look closer
at them, most of them don't really "count":

    $ cd /usr/local/texlive/2025/texmf-dist/ && find . -name '*.c'

    ./doc/generic/docbytex/base.c
    ./doc/generic/docbytex/cosi.c
    ./doc/generic/docbytex/main.c
    ./doc/generic/docbytex/win.c
    ./doc/generic/c-pascal/prog/sun.c
    ./doc/latex/bmstu/examples/inc/lst/main.c
    ./doc/latex/codebox/test.c
    ./doc/latex/dickimaw/src/thesis/listing-samples/helloworld.c
    ./doc/latex/dickimaw/src/thesis/listing-samples/sqrt.c
    ./doc/latex/pygmentex/pygmentex_demo.c

These files are the sources for listings typeset in the included
documentation, not actually files that are meant to be ran/compiled.

    ./doc/cstex/cspsfonts-gen/kernoff.c
    ./doc/fonts/libertine/g2ntotex.c
    ./doc/generic/t2/etc/t2filter.c
    ./doc/generic/xypic/support/pnmrawtopcropwhite.c
    ./source/latex/cjk/utils/pyhyphen/pinyin.c

These are specialized files that the package authors happened to include
in their package on CTAN, not tools that are actually compiled for TeX
Live (or that would be useful for a general audience).

    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/complex-memory.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/empty-main.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/fibonacci-rec.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/float.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/func-ptr.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/mandelbrot.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/mul.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/printf.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/shift.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/string.c
    ./source/latex/avremu/test-suite/sum-rec.c

Fascinating package, but if you read the documentation, I think that
you'll agree that this doesn't really count :)

    ./source/latex/bengali/beng.c
    ./source/latex/fancynum/tables.c
    ./source/latex/otibet/oct2otp.c
    ./source/latex/sanskrit/skt.c
    ./source/latex/bibarts/bibsort.c
    ./source/latex/splitindex/splitindex.c

Theoretically useful tools, but there are no binaries in TL for any of
these (and most of these are extremely old, so I'm not even sure if
they'd all compile).

    ./source/latex/axodraw2/axohelp.c

Ok, this one is the source for a binary in TL. I guess this should be
moved to where the rest of the sources are? Karl?

> >     2. The typescript and goodie files for some fonts, including Lucida
> >     (distributed by tug) and the koeielettersot are missing. For Lucida,
> >     that is the files type-imp-lucida.mkiv and lucida-math.lfg.
> >
> > Both are nonfree fonts. The TL policy, following that of other free
> > distributions, has always been not to include files whose only purpose
> > is to support use of nonfree fonts (or programs, or whatever), even if
> > they themselves are released under a free software license.  I don't
> > always catch everything, but that's the intent.
>
> I must say I do not understand the reasoning behind this. I think it
> would be much more helpful for the users if those Lucida typescript
> files could be there. For users not having the fonts, these cannot do
> any harm.

Personally, I also find the policy a little bit odd, but:

1. Most of the downstream Linux distros have the same policy, so this
   makes it much easier for them to package TL.

2. This has been the policy forever (as far as I'm aware, at least), so
   it's "easiest" to not change it.

3. There are very very few packages/files on CTAN that are excluded from
   TL solely due to this policy, so there's not really much reason to
   change it.

> A few
> examples that are somewhat similar to the Lucida typescript files:
> adobe.map, linot-cd.map, yandy.map.

Those are more of a database of all known fonts (at the time) rather
than actual support files for those fonts. This is a pretty arbitrary
justification though, but most of the files there are older than I am,
so a random post-hoc rationalization is the best that I can do.

> If the problem is that the files are there only to support a
> commercial font, we could either add something to them so that is not
> the case, or simply join them with some non-commercial font. But I
> hope we agree that does not make any sense.

That would probably make things worse since then we'd either have to
remove the commercial parts or (most likely) exclude the file entirely.
Minor code additions or incidental support for commercial software is
tolerated, but if a file contains substantial code that exclusively
works with commercial software, then that's a problem.

So adding a half-dozen lines that special-cases a commercial font to one
of the font-XXX.mkxl files would probably be fine, but just
concatenating all the font goodie files together so that the file also
contains support for free fonts wouldn't be okay.

Thanks,
-- Max