Re: Sizes of TL distribution

> Arthur Rosendahl wrote
> 
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2026 at 10:57:59AM -0700, Max Chernoff via tex-live wrote:
> 
> > The schemes are essentially just random ad-hoc collections of packages
> > (Karl, please correct me if I'm wrong here), but after writing TLC3,
> > scraping arXiv for the accessibility package status table, and dealing
> > with various user support requests over the years, you probably have a
> > much better idea of which packages are commonly used than we do. So if
> > you're willing to give us a list of packages, we'll gladly update one of
> > the schemes or create a new one to contain only those packages.
> 
> I once asked the people from VTeX (https://vtex.lt/) for such a list
> from the documents they process, I think it was in 2017. I can dig it
> up if you want.

If I remember well, a few years ago you announced a project of creating a LaTeX distribution (or a scheme) adding to the LaTeX core a selection of packages providing the most often needed additional functionality, and ensuring their compatibility with the core, right? I don't remember the name of that project.

I was quite interested by the idea then. I have always had this dream that, for functionality offered by several additional "competing" packages, having become over the years standard resources for LaTeX users (as listed, say, in TLC2 and now TLC3), one package is selected by the LaTeX developers, its interface is streamlined and minimized (ie not dozens of commands, just a few) and its documentation abridged (ie, not hundreds of pages), and the package is included in LaTeX itself. So that eventually the user gets a LaTeX which already contains everything they will need for day-to-day use (apart from more specialized needs like publisher or university styles, etc), and they won't have to shop around, spend time installing, trying and comparing additional packages, the functionality will be
  already there for them to use.

This probably will never happen, too much work involved, and not really in line with the open source philosophy, but still a dream. And, to be fair, the TLC already provides most of what's needed, directing the user to the relevant packages and describing their most useful commands.

Bruno Voisin