> Disk space isn't the only consideration here; if it were I'd not be
> concerned about this. Processing time is an issue, and so is distribution
> size, and so is the length of the manual if someone decides to print it
> on dead trees. I also live in fear of the day that we hit some hard-to-
> change internal limit in TeX.
>
> Personally, what I grep when I'm looking for historical info is "git log"
> output, which will certainly not be getting any shorter.
Fifteen years ago distributing it all made sense: not everyone had
access to get the doc's and they were manageable and didn't take too
long to download at 9600Kb (N71...).
Today most users will have direct internet access and the whole
content is intimidating (let alone heavy if you try to print it);
Searching the doc's actually becomes more difficult due to the sheer
volume of matches from outdated packages.
A majority of users these days will look up anything they need via
Google (Duck, Y!...) rather than search the original content anyway:
having it available via web actually makes it more searchable in that
case. Left to my own devices I'd rather have the current major version
locally for the rare times my connection is down when I have to
restore a database and be able to search version-specific content
via the net otherwise.
--
Steven Lembark 3646 Flora Pl
Workhorse Computing St Louis, MO 63110
lembark@wrkhors.com +1 888 359 3508