[tex-live] texmf-dist/doc vs texmf/doc

[Karl Berry]

Hi Gerben,

    Can anybody tell me the rationale behind the texmf-dist and texmf doc  
    trees separation? 

The texmf-doc tree was intended for "packages" which are documentation
only, primarily so that they could be organized by language.  It also
reduces the size of texmf-dist a little bit.  (This was Fabrice's idea,
and I think it actually works pretty well.)  But I'm not sure you're
really asking about texmf-doc.

    E.g. why is latex2e.pdf in texmf

Hmm, I can't think of a good reason right now why the files in
texmf/doc/latex/base are there instead of texmf-dist.  I'll be updating
LaTeX in TL soon, and will reconsider this.  (I never thought about it
before, I just inherited it :).  Sebastian?)

    and the rest of latex packages in texmf-dist, while the actual files
    used by TeX are all in texmf-dist?

The theoretical idea (again, Fabrice's) behind texmf-dist vs. texmf is
to separate out files which are implementation-independent (e.g., TeX macros)
from those which are implementation-dependent (e.g., binaries).  So all
the LaTeX macros are in texmf-dist.

k