texlive depends on docs that take up more space than the software

Bug #401545 reported by SB Tech Services
34
This bug affects 7 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
texlive-extra (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: texlive-latex-extra

On a virgin ubuntu jaunty(9.04) system installing texlive-latex-extra will install 385MB. Only 147MB is software while 238MB is documentation.
These figures are from aptitude and include texlive-latex-extra and its dependencies.

The doc packages installed are listed here
iA doc-base +377kB
iA texlive-base-bin-doc +11.6MB
iA texlive-doc-base +1245kB
iA texlive-humanities-doc +10.8MB
iA texlive-latex-base-doc +38.8MB
iA texlive-latex-extra-doc +110MB
iA texlive-latex-recommended-doc +24.8MB
iA texlive-pictures-doc +7762kB
iA texlive-pstricks-doc +33.4MB

This may not be a problem for desktop systems but for small server systems especially virtual machines and flash based embedded systems it is undesirable.

Revision history for this message
Eric (esb) wrote :

The Debian Policy Manual, Chapter 7, defines a Recommends as a "strong, but not absolute, *dependency*" (emphasis added.) These documentation packages should be Suggests, defined as packages that "can perhaps enhance its usefulness, but that installing this one without them is perfectly reasonable". These packages take approximately 230MB and are superfluous, and compared to ~15MB for an example package+dependencies, is extreme. 230MB worth of text documentation is a lot to recommend.

Revision history for this message
Norbert Preining (preining) wrote : Re: [Bug 401545] Re: texlive depends on docs that take up more space than the software

On Fr, 20 Nov 2009, Eric wrote:
> The Debian Policy Manual, Chapter 7, defines a Recommends as a "strong,
> but not absolute, *dependency*" (emphasis added.) These documentation
> packages should be Suggests, defined as packages that "can perhaps
> enhance its usefulness, but that installing this one without them is
> perfectly reasonable". These packages take approximately 230MB and are
> superfluous, and compared to ~15MB for an example package+dependencies,
> is extreme. 230MB worth of text documentation is a lot to recommend.

Already discussed hundreds of times, this is invalid bug. Please
read up on the Debian BTS for explanations.

Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining Associate Professor
JAIST Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology <email address hidden>
Vienna University of Technology <email address hidden>
Debian Developer (Debian TeX Task Force) <email address hidden>
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Revision history for this message
Ilya Barygin (randomaction) wrote :

Documentation is only recommended. If you want to save space, install with aptitude -R.

Changed in texlive-extra (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
SB Tech Services (info-sbts) wrote : Re: [Bug 401545] Re: texlive depends on docs that take up more space than the software

Yes but unfortunately the default is to automatically install recommends.
Documentation of this type should always be a suggests.
Otherwise it WILL ALL WAYS be installed unless a user removes it by hand.
Even an update can cause it to be installed.

Not very sensible.

Recommends should only be for software that is desirable for correct
operation,
and possibly ESSENTIAL documentation that is likely to be required to
make a package work.
This should ammount to a couple of pages at most.

David

Ilya Barygin wrote:
> Documentation is only recommended. If you want to save space, install
> with aptitude -R.
>
> ** Changed in: texlive-extra (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Invalid
>
>

Revision history for this message
SB Tech Services (info-sbts) wrote :

This bug is not invalid, as per the The Debian Policy Manual the documentation files should be "Suggests" not recommends
have reset status to incomplete. please do not change to invalid without discussion first.

Changed in texlive-extra (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Norbert Preining (preining) wrote : Re: [Bug 401545] Re: texlive depends on docs that take up more space than the software

On Di, 23 Mär 2010, Shark Bay Technical Services wrote:
> This bug is not invalid, as per the The Debian Policy Manual the documentation files should be "Suggests" not recommends
> have reset status to incomplete. please do not change to invalid without discussion first.

This bug is *INVALID* as discussed several times on the Debian TeX
mailing list

I will not repeat ad nauseam the arguments, if you are too lazy
to read up, so it be.

BTW,*you* should not change status without discussion.

Best wishes

Norbert
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norbert Preining preining@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan TU Wien, Austria Debian TeX Task Force
DSA: 0x09C5B094 fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76 A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
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Revision history for this message
Callum Macdonald (chmac) wrote :

= Personal experience =

I wanted to install lyx and was horrified to see the download would be 438MB which would translate to 745MB of disk usage. After a little investigation, it turns out more than 70% of the download and almost 60% of the disk space was documentation. I looked through all the dependencies but was thoroughly lost. I couldn't figure out the tree of dependencies that caused every documentation package to be installed. Instead I created an equivs package to avoid installing all the -doc packages. For anyone else finding this bug, I published the package here:
http://www.callum-macdonald.com/2010/06/12/installing-lyx-without-the-bloat/

Through further research it seems like a simpler solution might be to exclude the recommended packages. I'll update my post once I figure out the details.

= History =

Norbert, you said this has been discussed on the Debian bug tracking system and debian tex-maint mailing list. Is that correct?

I found a bug, but I'm struggling to find anything in the mailing list.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515051

Do you know specifically where I can find the previous discussions? Or suggestions on how to find them? I've run several searches on the debian mailing list search, but I've been unable to find anything relevant.
http://lists.debian.org/search.html

= Licensing =

In debian bug 515051 you said 'It is not necessarily a case of "prefer" but of "license" ...'. I took this to mean that the license of texlive / tex requires that the documentation be included. Is that an accurate interpretation of what you meant?

I found what I believe to be the texlive license here:
http://www.tug.org/texlive/LICENSE.TL

I don't see anything in that document that specifies a need for documentation to be included in distributions. Perhaps I've misunderstood something here. Can you point me in the right direction?

= Philosophy =

I feel like having the packages at "recommends" might offer a good solution for users familiar with apt and dependency choices. Personally, this issue is the first time I've ever come to realise that recommended packages are installed by default. I've been an Ubuntu user for about 3 years and consider myself fairly technically minded. It's something that had simply never crossed my path.

For a user like myself, changing the packages to suggest would save me 320Mb of download bandwidth. In my personal circumstances, and most likely, to anyone not living in the first world, that's a significant amount of data. In the case of a user wanting to install lyx, I feel strongly that the documentation for the underlying packages is not necessary.

I believe Ubuntu has a strong focus on usability. I searched for a reference for that belief. I found only references on wikipedia dating back to 2006. If that focus on usability has changed, I think it makes sense to leave the doc packages at recommends. If not, if Ubuntu still aims to be linux for human beings, then I think the best option to serve that aim is to switch the doc packages to suggests instead.

Revision history for this message
Norbert Preining (preining) wrote :

Hi Callum,

On So, 13 Jun 2010, Callum Macdonald wrote:
> Norbert, you said this has been discussed on the Debian bug tracking
> system and debian tex-maint mailing list. Is that correct?

Right.

> I found a bug, but I'm struggling to find anything in the mailing list.
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515051

Right. All important things are stated there.

> Do you know specifically where I can find the previous discussions? Or suggestions on how to find them? I've run several searches on the debian mailing list search, but I've been unable to find anything relevant.

What else do you need? There is:
- explanation why the doc files are a recommends and not a suggests
  (and that this is already a compromise regarding the LPPL)
- how to adjust your system to make sure that the recommends are not installed

I don't see any more need in discussing that further.

> = Licensing =
>
> In debian bug 515051 you said 'It is not necessarily a case of "prefer"
> but of "license" ...'. I took this to mean that the license of texlive /
> tex requires that the documentation be included. Is that an accurate
> interpretation of what you meant?
>
> I found what I believe to be the texlive license here:
> http://www.tug.org/texlive/LICENSE.TL
>
> I don't see anything in that document that specifies a need for
> documentation to be included in distributions. Perhaps I've
> misunderstood something here. Can you point me in the right direction?

LPPL 1.3c, please read. The "work" is by many authors considered
as not only the run time files, but also the documentation. Installing
the run time files *without* documentation would break the LPPL.

As said in the bug report, if people are continuing to complain
I will include *ALL* the doc files back into the original packages,
remvoe the recommends, and there will be no more option. End of
discussion.

> = Philosophy =

[much blabla deleted]

All has been said. If Ubuntu people want to do something else, they
are free to do wahtever they want. I keep to my rules, and I am not
inclined to make any further concessions trying to expand LPPL.

If Ubuntu packagers want to do that, they are free to do so.

Enjoy

Norbert
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Norbert Preining preining@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan TeX Live & Debian Developer
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Revision history for this message
Callum Macdonald (chmac) wrote :

Here's what I believe to be a copy of LPPL version 1.3c to which you refer:
http://www.latex-project.org/lppl/lppl-1-3c.txt

Are you willing to explain on what basis you feel this license prohibits distribution of a Compiled Work without the accompanying documentation components?

Under clause 2, distributing part of the Work is considered a Derived Work. Under clause 6, this is allowed under four requirements.

Clause 6a refers to components of the Work which are direct replacements. That does not apply to a Derived Work without documentation, the components are not direct replacements, they are the original components. Clauses 6b likewise does not apply, there are no modifications to individual components, simply the omission of other components (the documentation). Clause 6c does not apply. Clause 6d is met by having the doc debs available in the same repositories.

Revision history for this message
Norbert Preining (preining) wrote :

On Mo, 14 Jun 2010, Callum Macdonald wrote:
> Here's what I believe to be a copy of LPPL version 1.3c to which you refer:
> http://www.latex-project.org/lppl/lppl-1-3c.txt

Yes.

> Are you willing to explain on what basis you feel this license prohibits
> distribution of a Compiled Work without the accompanying documentation
> components?

Yes, but are you willing to read them?

> Under clause 2, distributing part of the Work is considered a Derived
> Work. Under clause 6, this is allowed under four requirements.

Right, and the "Work" is the complee set, including documentation.

> Clause 6a refers to components of the Work which are direct
> replacements. That does not apply to a Derived Work without
> documentation, the components are not direct replacements, they are the

It is a derived work, because assuming we do not ship the doc files,
then according to clause 2
 Distribution of only part of the Work is considered
 modification of the Work
And *of*course* they are *direct* replacements, because the files
can be used as is instead of the original ones (they are the original ones)
without stating proiminently that it is a changed file.

So clause 6a is the one to apply, because we do not ship the "Original Work"
and the "Derived Work" can be used as replacement.

Do you want us to change *every* file (several thousands?) changing the
copyright statement there? No.

Best wishes

Norbert
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norbert Preining preining@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan TeX Live & Debian Developer
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Changed in texlive-extra (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Won't Fix
Revision history for this message
torzsmokus (torzsmokus) wrote :

> Do you want us to change *every* file (several thousands?) changing the
copyright statement there? No.

In the 21st century, equipped with such amazing tools as perl (etc), doing this when building the ubuntu package should not mean a problem.
Would you please explain shortly, why it does.

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