[tex-live] Updating packages over the internet a la MiKTeX

[Gerben Wierda]

On Jun 6, 2004, at 14:09, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:

> Gerben Wierda wrote:
>
>> Hmm. Let's see if I understand this. We have CTAN, TeX Live's Master 
>> tree is taken from CTAN (right?)
>
> CTAN, and maybe other places too if needed. TL's job is to take a raw 
> package and coerce it into
> a consistent TDS layout
>
>> and the TPM's are maintained by the TeX Live crew. MiKTeX's 
>> repository is taken from TeX Live. MiKTeX's repository then is 
>> reinserted in another branch of CTAN (win32).
>>
>> teTeX's texmf tree is (Thomas informs me) taken from CTAN (largely) 
>> with a bit of hand work thrown in.
>>
>> Is this in fact how it is?
>
> sounds about right, yes

Which implies that MiKTeX's basic repository is two steps away from 
CTAN (TL being the first step). Anyway, this sounds like a far from 
ideal situation.

Shouldn't we go for one TDS-compliant repository (read: CTAN which is 
mirrored everywhere) and have the TPM files included in CTAN? That way 
we could remove one repository alltogether and TL could draw directly 
from CTAN without having to maintain its own Master tree (except as a 
copy for building the images).

G