[tex-live] linguex in texlive snapshot

Frank Küster frank at kuesterei.ch
Tue Sep 2 22:29:51 CEST 2008


Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard <mpg at elzevir.fr> wrote:
> i've done a few myself, but it's ineffably tedious -- as witness the
> tiny number of entries thus marked in the several thousand total in the
> catalogue.

It is tedious, indeed.

>> Agreed, and also there should be a way to indicate contradictory statements,
>> like "lppl any version" and "you shall not modify" in the same file, as it
>> sometimes happens.
>
> which, is being interpreted, "other-nonfree".  i changed a package from
> lppl to nosell this morning, since the author had added the proviso that
> no part of it should be included in a package for sale.
>
> i can't record that in the present structure.

I would simply treat this as other-nonfree. Either someone cares about
the package, then they have to dig through the details anyway, or no one
cares and it stays like this forever. 

What might be useful, though, is a possibility to indicate the reason
for sorting a package in one of the nonfree/nosell categories. I mean,
the "file" field is meant to contain one file, or the word "header"
(meaning the header of each single file covered). But there's no way to
indicate "header contradicts $file" or "README contradicts COPYING".

>> >    - author could be contacted at $date by $collaborator under
>> >      $e-mail at address.
>>
>> Or also (unfortunately) "missing author address".

I first thought that leaving this empty could be used for this - but you
are right, an empty field can also mean "no one ever cared to fill that
in". 

> this lot merely skims the surface of the collaboration issue.
>
> at present, there are two people who write catalogue entries: rainer s
> (for the packages he installs) and me (for everything else, and for
> packages who never had an entry in the first place).
>
> it's easy for us to collaborate.  if someone else (e.g., karl) finds a
> problem, they can mail one of us and we'll put it right.
>
> to widen the collaboration, we need something better supporting the
> enterprise, than a subversion server.  (imo)

You mean, a web interface or similar?  It would have to be one with
authentication, and we shouldn't give access to too many people.  

It doesn't help us anything if after a year we find out that we really
need to re-check these other 213 entries done by $random_contributor
because we found that number 109 and 215 were checked too superficially
and the two entries are actually wrong.

Given that, I doubt that subversion is a big threshold. But I'm working
on Linux; maybe Windows or Mac users have a different view on this.

> as the (only) person who does significant quality work on the catalogue,
> i've lots of scrappy little notes about what's in progress, what needs
> to be done, whatever...  if we set up a collaboration, we need something
> to hold scrappy little notes, not well structured statements about
> entries.  work in progress, that is.  not necessarily related to a
> catalogue entry.

Hm, yes. A Wiki? 

> i have no idea how to do such a thing.  but then i've already said i
> want no part of setting up collaboration: i merely offer to collaborate
> if i'm wanted when the time comes.

AOL. I never set up a wiki or even authenticated web service so far; I
have no idea of the security aspects, and I cannot promise any continous
administration support for anything I do.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Debian Developer (TeXLive)
ADFC Miltenberg
B90/Grüne KV Miltenberg


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