[tex-live] Non-PDF documentation

[Robin Fairbairns]

Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard <mpg at elzevir.fr> wrote:

> Philipp Stephani a écrit :
> > How can I add something to an existing packages that was not written by me?
> > Is that covered by the LPPL and by CTAN's upload mechanism?
> 
> Well, I don't think transforming dvi/ps in PDF (or event compiling a .tex or
> .dtx file) is really adding something to the package, for a licence point of
> view. (Taking the comments out of a .sty and turning them into a pdf is another
> question.)
> 
> Concerning CTAN upload, I think uploading just the generated pdfs to one node's
> incoming directory, and asking one of the CTAN admins (or perhaps the collective
> ctan@ address is preferred) to add it it the appropriate package is the best.

certainly, i've announced that i will generate pdf docs for packages as
and when i feel like it.

as for uploading, remember that only ftp.tex.ac.uk runs a /incoming
service, now -- all three ctan sites offer web upload, but i remain
behind the times (in this as in so many ways...).

> > Anyway, I've
> > written a tiny program that looks for non-existing and non-PDF docs. I've
> > attached the program and the lists that are created on my system (excluding
> > the ucs and german packages). To date, it lists 1213 packages without any
> > documentation (that's around 42% of all packages), and 316 packages without
> > PDF manual (11% of all packages). The new texdoc doesn't seem to warn about
> > switching to full search mode any more. The previous version of the program
> > also listed those packages as undocumented, adding some 400 more to the list.

note that there are circumstances where i've looked at a package on ctan
and found it difficult to regenerate.  a case in point would be ucs: i
thought it had non-scaleable fonts in places where it had a choice, and
that's why i've not converted the the .ps -- regenerating it would be
too painful for words.

> I'll answer that part later, needs more time. Anyway, thanks a lot for your
> interest in improving documentation coverage!

i'll second that.

robin