🚀 go-pugleaf

In <00967474.3DA74880.11074@SHSU.edu> "George D. Greenwade" <bed_gdg@SHSU.edu> writes (in comp.text.tex):

>Regarding what constitutes an inclusive archive, etc., for getting things
>into and propogated among the archives.  I serve as coordinator of TUG's
>Working Group on TeX Archive Guidelines (WG 92-05).  

>The WG has been looking at a number of issues (the mandate for WG 92-05 was
>included in the last issue of TeX and TUG News).  One very exciting
>development is the creation of what I have dubbed the Comprehensive TeX
>Archive Network (CTAN).  If you have logged in at Stuttgart recently, you
>will have noticed that the directory structure is being changed slightly;
>if you've logged in at ftp.tex.ac.uk, you've probably seen a similar
>structure; if you've been logged in at one of our yet-unnanounced new Unix
>boxes at SHSU, you're quite crafty 8-), and you've seen the same structure. 
>An ultimate goal is to have all CTAN hosts look, feel, include, and work
>like one another.  This is being accomplished by mirroring one another's
>archives to include directory and file naming structure.  There's still a
>little tuning to do before everything's official, though (just dealing with
>what we now have is not a trivial task -- and more's to be added).

>Each of these hosts runs a modified "wuarchive" ftp daemon, allowing
>compression, archiving, etc., on the fly (BTW, if anyone reading this has
>ever successfully gotten the wuarchive ftpd to make on an HP-UX, **please**
>contact me).  Each, as I understand it, will run a common mailer interface
>for non-ftp users' access.  Very likely, we will NFS mount our Unix
>directories to Niord, as well (and may very well make them world mountable
>once our T1 line is in place).  In general, this has the ability to evolve
>into one of the largest coordinated archiving projects on the Internet.

>Eventually, the CTAN hosts will additionally mirror routinely what I have
>dubbed Specialized TeX Archive (STA) hosts -- hosts which are not
>comprehensive in holdings, but are critical to what's available on the net,
>such as the AMS' e-math.ams.org, Nelson Beebe's ftp.math.utah.edu, Karl
>Berry's ftp.cs.umb.edu, and so on.  Since there will be a CTAN directory
>structure, I imagine that STA hosts will be encouraged to migrate to it
>(although I don't believe that will ever be a prerequisite for anything). 
>Once we get along a little further, I will create a CTAN support mailing
>list which will link together the CTAN managers and other interested
>parties.

>Finally, I know of at least one other North American site which has
>indicated an interest in being in the CTAN -- I would hope we could add an
>Asian site with a site down under somewhere, moving possibly to 6-8 total
>sites worldwide serving as CTAN hosts in an effort to better distribute the
>workload of STA mirroring.  If anyone out there has an interest and about
>half a gig or more to spare, let me know.

>Again, these views are mine alone and should not be construed as binding
>on anyone or anything else -- but it is a dream coming true.

>Regards,   George

Have any sites in Australia shown an interest in mirroring in this way?
I know yallara has stuff from labrea, and monu1 seems to keep up-to-date
emTeX files, but what is proposed here seems more comprehensive.

--Sam
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     : samh@zen.maths.uts.edu.au   Dr S H Huxham                              :
     :            (internet)       School of Mathematical Sciences            :
     : tel: +61 2 330 2237         University of Technology, Sydney           :
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