Missing files in TL25

[Karl Berry]

Hi Mikael and all,

    I thought TUG decided what goes into TL.

No, TUG does not decide this (Max was incorrect here, lacking the
history). TL "governance", to use the buzzword, is independent of
TUG. We use tug.org for hosting with TUG's permission, but the TUG board
does not get to make decisions about TL.

If the TUG board revokes that permission, which they have the power to
do, we could, in principle, move TL elsewhere. Which, incidentally, is
why I pay for the (currently unused) texlive.org domain with my own
money.

    If you grep for a few commercial fonts, you will find a lot mixed
    into other innocent-looking files. For example AdobeSongStd, Sabon,
    Optima, GillSans, ...

The thing is, there are free (if inferior) versions of many proprietary
fonts. I have no time, interest, or expertise to examine the context
sources to figure out exactly what free fonts you might support as
fallbacks, if any, and which context files truly support only nonfree
fonts. I know about lucida and ko*letters from the past, so those are
the ones I've historically removed.

I'll review your other messages and remove more when I update context
from the current cont-tmf in a bit (probably tomorrow), since you
mentioned them specifically, and review the situation in general.

    We do not see a real difference between the goodie files and, say,
    map+tfm files (that for instance implement a slanted or extended
    font).

Agreed. I did not intentionally make a distinction there.

    We need to be able to explain the logic to users.

You can explain that the rule is the same as it's always been: if the
only purpose of a file is to support proprietary fonts or software, it
shouldn't be in TL, even if the supporting file is itself released under
a free software license.

Being human (purportedly :), I am not perfect at applying that
rule. "Freedom bugs", as they're called, can be reported like any
other. I have removed plenty of files as the result over the years of
such reports.

I am *very* well aware that many people disagree with that rule for TL.
All I can say is, anyone is welcome to make their own TeX distribution
with whatever rules they like. And if there is a consensus among people
who are willing to step in and take over maintaining TL to change it,
ok, that is possible too. I and any of the other current maintainers can
step down if we wish, and others can take over.

>From my perspective with the current TL, the ideal outcome for context
would be, as Max suggested, a cont-tmf-nonfree.zip which could be
installed as part of tlcontrib, and then cont-tmf-free.zip from which I
wouldn't have to remove anything.

However, I definitely do not expect you/Hans/CTX people in general to
want to spend the time to do that, since you don't agree with it. We're
all volunteers and get to choose what we do and don't do.

Best,
Karl