[tlbuild] texlive and politics...

[Boris Veytsman]

NP> Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:02:18 +0900
NP> From: Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at>

NP> Hi Thomas, hi all,

NP> although it is not really tlbuild related, it is not a bad idea
NP> because on the main list there are too many people talking without
NP> being really involved.


Another reason why the moving to tlbuild list might be useful is that
here we can discuss *technical* issues of the problem instead of the
*political* ones.

>From the technical point of view there is a very simple solution,
already used by, for example, Debian folks: whoever wants to
distribute through TeXLive infrastructure some additional (e.g.
non-free) packages, should be able to do so by starting and supporting
their own repository.  Actually, there is at least one such project,
http://tlcontrib.metatex.org/usage.html.  I think this is a good
solution from the political point of view too: if users are truly
free, they should be free to do whatever they want, including using
non-free software.

However, right now there is a technical problem: tlmgr assumes there
is only one repository; you can change it to tlcontrib, but then you
lose the core one (see the contortions described in
http://latex-alive.tumblr.com/post/1303450459).  It would be *much*
easier if tlmgr could accept a list of repositories, merge it and
select the newest version of the package found.    Then we can
distribute tlmgr with only our repository enabled, but users would be
free to extend the list.

This, by the way, would do another useful thing: helping developers to
start experimental repositories (say, hyperref-beta) with beta-versions
of some packages to coordinate the work of their beta-testers before
uploading the tested version to CTAN (and to TL core).  I often need
this functionality myself.

Can we add this functionality before TL'2012 freeze?  I can help with
this if necessary.

-- 
Good luck

-Boris

"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse."
		-- William Gilbert