Re: gnuplot documentation and picins

[Mojca M. <moj...@gm...>]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 23:47, Ethan Merritt wrote:
> On Monday 06 April 2009 14:05:57 Mojca Miklavec wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm trying to build gnuplot documentation (with "make pdf"), but it
>> requires a package picins.sty that has been removed from TeX Live a
>> while ago due to not-free-enough licence. As far as I could see the
>> package has not been used at all: removing the line
>> "\usepackage{picins}" didn't do any harm at all and the documentation
>> has been built normally (though I didn't inspect the resulting PDF in
>> details).
>
> I am using texlive, and for me the picins.sty file works fine.
> It is still easily available, even if it isn't bundled with texlive.

It's definitely easily available, there's no doubt about it.

>> Would it make sense to remove that line or do something else to
>> prevent problems? (Maybe some developers are still using tetex and
>> don't experience the problem, but sooner or later it will strike
>> back.)
>
> It is needed in order to include figures in the pdf documentation.
> That is the "make pdffigures" target.

OK, I knew I was missing something.

> I have tried another package as a replacement (sorry, can't rememeber
> which one it was) but the results were not very satisfactory.
> But if you can suggest other packages to try, I am willing.

I need to check the results first.

One idea that comes to my mind first before exploring other packages
is to include the source (either the file itself, or only the contents
with explanation) of the package into manual (to copy macros instead
of saying \usepackage{picins}). One probably needs to ask the author,
but I don't think that author would object.

I understand the licence as
    "I'm using this package, so please don't make changes that could
destroy my old documents."
rather than
    "This is absolutely copyrighted. You may not do anything with it."

But that needs your opinion first. I wonder how different
distributions compile the documentation by default (if they compile it
at all).

Mojca