On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, "C.M. Connelly" <cmc@debian.org> wrote: > Many packages contain preprints or reprints of academic papers as > part of their documentation. In many cases, there is no > ``source'' available for these documents -- they are distributed > as PostScript or PDF files. > ... > My feeling is that as ``historical documents'' -- frozen documents > describing some early state or underlayment of the software, and > not day-to-day documentation -- we shouldn't worry that much about > not having the source for these documents. Others may disagree, > believing that we need to have source for everything that we > distribute. I originally raised this issue wrt the file /usr/share/doc/texmf/metapost/base/mpman.ps.gz in the tetex-doc package. This is a preprint distributed by Bell Labs, and so is an "academic preprint", but the abstract explains This document serves as an introductory user's manual. AFAICT, this is the principal reference manual for MetaPost. If one wanted to modify the MetaPost language in some way, you would probably also want to modify this manual. I think it is definitely in Debian's interest to have the source for this academic paper. I'm about to go ask John Hobby if he's willing to release the source, but in general I think Debian should insist on source, even for academic papers. Note that one of the largest archives of academic papers on the web, http://arxiv.org, insists on TeX source. From http://arxiv.org/help/faq/whytex.html: > Why submit the TeX source? > > 1. TeX has many advantages that make it ideal as a format for the archives: > It is plain ASCII, it is compact, it is freely available for all > platforms, it produces extremely high-quality output, and it retains > contextual information. > > (It is thus more likely to be a good source from which to generate newer > formats, e.g. MathML [namely HTML, or more specifically XML, which handles > mathematics correctly -- note that the MathML people plan a LaTeX to MathML > translator, but dvi/ps/pdf lack the necessary document structuring concepts]. > Possession of the source thus provides many additional options for future > document migrations (none of us really expect dvi, ps, pdf, etc., to be the > final word). These are good reasons for wanting source in general, independent of any need for modification. Best, Dylan Thurston
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