[tlbuild] texlive and politics...

[T T]

On 19 March 2012 07:51, Thomas A. Schmitz <thomas.schmitz at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
 > I have hesitated for a long time whether this should be a private message to
 > Karl, but I think that it may be of some general interest to all builders,
 > so I hope it isn't an abuse of this list.

Same here, so although I'm not one of the builders, I'll use this thread too.

 >> unfortunately, alexander grahn gave karl berry a list of packages that
 >> use features of acrocr*p reader.
 >
 >
 > If this is true, this would make the texlive effort a crusade for software
 > freedom defined in very narrow terms. I know that there are some good
 > reasons for this narrow view, but I find this direction too draconian.
 > Actively removing packages that implement features which are not supported
 > by "free" pdf viewers strikes me as excessive.

I agree, excessive and arbitrary.  I have always understood the
 guiding principle:

  | Furthermore, the material in TeX Live should not require nonfree software
  | to be useful.

 as a "hard requirement" that the package is rejected if its usefulness
 derives solely from technology or components that are proprietary and
 therefore only available in and/or usable with nonfree software (now
 and in the future).  Not as a "transient requirement" that someone has
 to first implement an open standard or specification in free software
 before TeX Live can accept packages using it.

 Karl, is the above rule really understood in such narrow terms?

 Cheers,

 Tomek