[tex-live] new babel in TL

[Robin Fairbairns]

Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha at web.de> wrote:

> On 2013-05-07 at 14:12:54 +0200, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> 
>  > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 1:01 PM, Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> 
>  > > i've never been quite sure why these "language-name"b versions
>  > > exist.  (except in the case of languages like french, where the
>  > > are lots of alternative babel packages.)
>  > 
>  > I don't know either, but I suspect the reason was the same as for
>  > French. Someone fixed the previous version, uploaded version "b" and
>  > after a while the original version was gone. But that's pure
>  > speculation.
> 
> I don't know whether it explains the "b", but originally the French
> language support files were under a nonfree license.  When Thomas
> Esser asked the author to change the license, he refused and thus his
> stuff had to be removed from teTeX.  
> 
> In order to support teTeX again he created a second package (maybe
> with less features) under a free licence.  That's what I remember.

gaulle's original files were shareware; he was highly indignant when i
put them into the (then) shiny new nonfree tree on ctan.  (he sent me
endless emails about the wrongness of the nonfree-tree-idea; i hope the
emotional stress didn't contribute to his death.)

istr this arrangement _was_ part of tidying things up, but we hadn't
thought of it as derogatory until bernard intervened.

one of his complaints was that we hadn't moved everything; this was
true.  the catalogue was in its infancy then, and its licence details
were sketchy at best ... thus we had to evaluate every package before
deciding whether to put it in nonfree/ -- wasteful at least, since we
only recorded decisions to move.

i think frenchb was a development by some other french people, to avoid
the shareware fee -- not something of bernard's.  (i wouldn't swear to
that, though.)

it's all the same in the end; all of gaulle's stuff is now on ctan,
licensed lppl.

robin