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CTAN: What is CTAN?
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href="/ctan-ann">Announcements</a></li> </ul></li> </ul> <form name="searchForm" id="searchForm" method="get" action="/search" enctype="text/plain"> <input class="phrase" name="phrase" type="text" size="24" accept-charset="ISO-8859-1" value="" autofocus /> </form> <ul class="menu search-menu"> <li><a class="search" onClick="document.searchForm.submit();return false;" href="/search"><span class="text">Search</span><span class="drop"> </span></a> <ul> <li class="menu-search-extended"><a href="/search?ext=new">Extended search</a></li> <li class="menu-search-files"><a href="/search?ext=false&FILES=on">File search</a></li> </ul></li> </ul> <script> if (window.location.hash !='') window.location.hash = window.location.hash; </script> </div> <nav class="breadcrumb"> Location: <a href="/">CTAN</a> <a href="">What is CTAN?</a> </nav> <main class="content"> <h1>What is CTAN?</h1> <div class="left"> <p> The Comprehensive <span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> Archive Network is a set of Internet sites around the world that offer <span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span>-related material for download. </p> <h2>Structure</h2> <p> CTAN is not a single site, but instead is a set of sites. </p> <p> One of the sites is the core. This site actively manages the material, for instance, by accepting uploads of new or updated packages. </p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://dante.ctan.org"><code>http://dante.ctan.org</code></a> is sponsored by the German <span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> group <a href='http://www.dante.de'>DANTE</a>, and is managed by Rainer Schoepf. </li> </ul> <p> In addition, other sites around the world help out by mirroring. These sites automatically sync their <span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> collections with a core site, and then in turn make their copies publicly available. This gives users close to their location better access, and relieves the core sites of network load. We maintain a list of <a href="../mirrors/"><i>official mirrors</i></a>; please use one if you can. </p> <h2>Being a Mirror</h2> <p> If you are interested in being an official mirror, that'd be great. (Mirror traffic is light, perhaps one visitor is logged in at any time.) You will need about 50 Gb of hard disk space and an always-on Internet connection. For the setup details, see our <a href="../mirrors/">mirroring page</a>. Once you are ready, use the signup form on this page. </p> <p> Thank you! </p> </div> <div class="right"> <h2>History</h2> <p> Before CTAN there were a number of people who made some <span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> materials available for public download, but there was no systematic collection. At a podium discussion that Joachim Schrod organized at the 1991 Euro<span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> conference, the idea arose to bring together the separate collections. (Joachim was involved because he ran one of the largest ftp servers in Germany at this time and had heavily modified the basic tool <code>mirror.pl</code> for this purpose.) </p> <p> CTAN was built in 1992, by Rainer Schoepf and Joachim Schrod in Germany, Sebastian Rahtz in the UK, and George Greenwade in the US (George came up with the name). The site structure was put together at the start of 1992 – Sebastian did the main work – and synchronized at the start of 1993. The <span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> Users Group provided a framework, a Technical Working Group, for this task's organization. CTAN was officially announced at the Euro<span class="t-logo">T<span class="e">e</span>X</span> conference in Aston, 1993. </p> <p>(<i>Note:</i> the familiar Perl archive, <a href="http://www.cpan.org">CPAN</a>, is based on the CTAN model.) </p> <p> The US site has moved twice. First, after being at Sam Huston State University under George Greenwade, in 1995 it went to UMass Boston where it was run by Karl Berry. Then, in 1999 it moved to Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont, where it was maintained by Jim Hefferon. In 2011 it left the core CTAN sites. </p> <p> The UK site at Cambridge has been sponsored by the UK TUG, and was managed by Robin Fairbairns. It left the core CTAN sites in 2015. </p> </div> <div class="clear"></div> <address> The CTAN Team </address> <div class="clear"></div> </main> <div class="foot"> <a class="guestbook" href="/guestbook" title="Leave some words for other visitors" >Guest Book</a> <a class="sitemap" href="/sitemap" title="Show the structure of this site" >Sitemap</a> <a class="contact" href="/contact" title="Get contact information for the Web site" >Contact</a> <a class="contact-author" href="/help/contact-author" title="Get help on how to contact an author" >Contact Author</a> <a class="feedback" href="mailto:webmaster@ctan.org?subject=Feedback%20for%20/ctan?lang=en" title="Send feedback on the current web page to the Web masters" >Feedback</a> </div> </div> <div class="footer"> <a id="share-toggle" class="in" title="Toggle share" href="#" onClick="return toggleShare();"> </a> <div id="share" class="in"><a class="mail fontawesome" title="Send link to this page by email" href="mailto:?subject=CTAN:%20 What%20is%20CTAN%3F&body=%2Fctan" ></a> <a class="twitter fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on Twitter" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="https://twitter.com/share?url=%2Fctan&text= What%20is%20CTAN%3F" ></a> <a class="facebook fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on Facebook" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=%2Fctan&t= What%20is%20CTAN%3F" ></a> <a class="gplus fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on Google+" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="https://plus.google.com/share?url=%2Fctan" ></a> <a class="linkedin fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on LinkedIn" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=%2Fctan&title= What%20is%20CTAN%3F&summary= What%20is%20CTAN%3F&source=CTAN" ></a> <a class="pinterest fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on Pinterest" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=%2Fctan&description= What%20is%20CTAN%3F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ctan.org%2Fimages%2Fctan_lion-64.png" ></a> <a class="xing fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on Xing" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="https://www.xing-share.com/app/user?op=share;sc_p=xing-share;url=%2Fctan" ></a> <a class="reddit fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on reddit" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=%2Fctan" ></a> <a class="tumblr fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on Tumblr" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="http://www.tumblr.com/share/link?url=Share link to this page on StumbleUpon&name= What%20is%20CTAN%3F&description= What%20is%20CTAN%3F" ></a> <a class="stumbleupon fontawesome" target="_blank" title="Share link to this page on StumbleUpon" onclick="return shareLink(this.href);" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=Share link to this page on StumbleUpon&title= What%20is%20CTAN%3F" ></a> </div> <span class="date">2024-11-27 18:51 CET</span> </div> <div id="portal-message"></div> </body> </html>