[tex-live] Status 'TeX Collection' (CTAN part)

[Klaus Hoeppner]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 07:41:40PM -0400, Karl Berry wrote:
>     and the production should be done until October 2nd
> 
> Does this mean the production will *start* on Oct 2, or be *complete* on
> Oct 2?  Just asking for information.

It should be completed. Normally, they need 10--14 days for printing
the cover (that's why my time schedule is narrower) and 3--5 days
for burning.

I will mail a pointer to the complete cover when it is ready.
In general, I will follow the scheme from CTAN covers, so there
will be a German and English text on the back, one page with the
LUG list, three pages filled half with the list of Lehmanns'
shops. I will have to think about what to put on the other halfs of
these three pages. In past, there where some questions and answers
about the CTAN snapshot in German and English, last year also in
French and Polish. I will try to find something similar, like
"Where is the setup program?" or "What documentation shall I read?".
So I am still open to ideas.

> And do these dates include the CTAN CD set?

Not yet. That shall start after the DVD is ready and will take at
least one or two weeks. Manfred told me that the snapshot is now
5 GB (1 GB more than last year), so it will be more challenging than
last year to shrink it to CD.
Was the CD set meant as an addition to TeX Live demo and installation
CDs? In this case 900 MB fptex and tetex could be removed -- as it shall be
the case for the DVD since it is allready part of TeX Live.

> FYI, Addison-Wesley and Patrick Daly specifically asked me about a
> copyright statement for the label for the TL they are including with the
> forthcoming edition of the Guide to LaTeX.  I told them they should not
> include one.  So hopefully that, at least, will be done correctly.

Let's hope the best :-)
Fortunately (not only because of copyright, it was a perfect candidate
for the "Worst LaTeX book ever" award, too), the Dummies book was removed
from the German book list and is now sold at discounters for
remainders of out-of-print books only. Somehow surprising, as it was
published less than one year ago, but there were rumours about
another bookauthor claiming plagiarism.

> So, instead of making ctan/ a subdirectory within the existing TL top
> level, how about having a new top level, with ctan/, texlive/, and a
> README?  This makes the distinction much clearer, IMHO.  Are there
> technical reasons why another directory level would not work?

That was Manfred's first idea, but keeping the original file structure
from TL DVD image and just adding a ctan directory seemed to be easier 
in my opinion, as it should prevent from fixing autorun things for
Windows or change of documentation (that would have to distinguish
between a DVD someone burned from the TL DVD image on TUG server and a
TeX Collection DVD, right?), and the probability for something getting
broken should be smaller when only adding something than changing the
directory structure.

> If ctan/ must be within the TL top level, then I will write a separate
> README and LICENSE (based on yours) specifically for the DVD.  The TL
> files need to stay as they are, because the TL CD's, after all, will not
> have ctan included.

Great.

Regards
Klaus