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diff --git a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html deleted file mode 100644 index ad42197a11e..00000000000 --- a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,50 +0,0 @@ -<head> -<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label nonfree</title> -</head><body> -<h3>What was the CTAN <code>nonfree</code> tree?</h3> -<p/>When CTAN was founded, in the 1990s, it was unusual to publish -the terms under which a TeX-related package was distributed (or, at -any rate, to publish those terms formally). -<p/>With the advent of the TeX <em>distributions</em>, however, people -started to realise the need for such information, to protect those who -create, distribute or sell the discs that hold the packages, etc. -With the licence information available, the distributors can decide -which packages may be distributed. -<p/>The CTAN team decided that it would be useful for users (and -distributors, not to say package authors) to separate packages that -were candidates for distribution, and those that were in some sense -“not free”. Thus was the <code>nonfree</code> tree born. -<p/>From the start, the <code>nonfree</code> tree was controversial: the terms -under which a package would be placed on the tree were hotly -contested, and the CTAN team were only able slowly to populate -the tree. It became obvious to the team that the project would never -have been completed. -<p/>The CTAN catalogue now records the nature of the licences of a -good proportion of the packages it describes (though there remain -several for which the licence is unknown, which is as good, for the -distributors, as a licence forbidding distribution). Since the -catalogue’s coverage of CTAN is good (and slowly improving), -the general rule for distributors has become -<blockquote> -“if the package is listed in the catalogue, check there to see -whether you should distribute; if the package is not listed in the -catalogue, don’t think of distributing it”. -</blockquote><p> -(The catalogue only has a modest -<a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/licenses.html">list of licences</a>, but it covers the set used -by packages on CTAN, with a wild-card “<code>other-free</code>” -which covers packages that the CTAN administrators believe to -be free even though the authors haven’t used a standard licence.) -<p/>There is a corollary to the ‘general rule’: if you notice something -that ought to be in the distributions, for which there is no catalogue -entry, please let the CTAN team (<a href="mailto:ctan@dante.de"><i>ctan@dante.de</i></a>) know. -It may well be that the package has simply been missed, but some aren’t -catalogued because there’s no documentation and the team just doesn’t -understand the package. -<p/>In the light of the above, the <code>nonfree</code> tree is being -dismantled, and its contents moved (or moved <em>back</em>) to the main -CTAN tree. So the answer to the question is, now, “the -nonfree tree was a part of CTAN, whose contents are now in -the main tree”. -<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=nonfree">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=nonfree</a> -</body> |