[LyX/master] AA not longer exists in CTAN; deleting section on AA.

[John Robert Hudson]

On Wednesday, 30 November 2022 16:29:24 GMT Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, dem 30.11.2022 um 13:55 +0100 schrieb Pavel Sanda:
> > Good question.  Jürgen. I have Googled each class I have checked and,
> > so far, A&A is the only class which I have found which still exists
> > outside CTAN.
> 
> Right, and this has always been the case (it was never on CTAN). My
> point was that existence on CTAN is not necessarily a condition to meet
> for LyX support, as long as the class/package is maintained and well
> receivable (as seems to be the case for A&A).
> 
> Note that I don't use this class myself, I was just wondering about
> your rationale. Having written that, I wonder whether the mentioning
> only of some (usually rather old) classes in Additional makes sense at
> all, as long as we do exclude other cases just per coincidence. Except
> maybe for the standard classes and general classes such as KOMA or
> Memoir. Maybe these documentations should go to separate manuals
> (rather than being deleted).
> 
> --
> Jürgen

My rationale was based on a CTAN decision only to include material which was 
compliant with the TeX/LaTeX licences - as a result of which a number of 
packages disappeared from CTAN. Consequently TeXLive and MikTeX no longer 
include such packages in their distributions.

Obviously this does not prevent people following the guidance in the 
Customization guide about adding other classes.

Equally obviously there is no need for LyX to follow CTAN except that most 
people downloading LyX will not know that these packages exist because they do 
not find them in their distribution.

I previously became aware of this when surveying BibTeX files after CTAN’s 
decision and a number of BibTeX files not only disappeared from CTAN but have 
disappeared completely.

I have no principled objection to including material not available in CTAN - I 
happen to use a BibTeX file which was temporarily excluded from CTAN because of 
licensing issues which have now been resolved. I did not feel it was wrong to 
continue using the file when it was excluded from CTAN.

As I mentioned previously, in all the other cases except A&A which I have 
reviewed so far the files have disappeared from CTAN and from the Internet more 
widely.

I am very happy to follow whatever guidance the developers give me. (I expect 
that in thinking about how best to develop Additional.lyx I may raise other 
similar questions which the developers may need to consider.)

John