CTAN (an

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for "Comprehensive TeX Archive Network") is the authoritative place where

TeX Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...

related material and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

can be found for download. Repositories for other projects, such as the

MiKTeX MiKTeX is a free and open-source distribution of the TeX/LaTeX typesetting system for Microsoft Windows (and for Mac and certain Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora). It also contains a set of related programs. MiKTeX provides ...

distribution of TeX, constantly

mirror A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...

most of CTAN.

History

Before CTAN there were a number of people who made some TeX materials available for public download, but there was no systematic collection. At a podium discussion that Joachim Schrod organized at the 1991 EuroTeX conference, the idea arose to bring together the separate collections. (Joachim was interested in this topic because he is active in the TeX community since 1983 and ran one of the largest

ftp The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

servers in Germany at that time.) CTAN was built in 1992, by Rainer Schöpf and Joachim Schrod in Germany,

Sebastian Rahtz Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz (13 February 1955 – 15 March 2016) (SPQR) was a British digital humanities information professional. Life Born in 1955 to Somerset-focused archaeologist Philip Rahtz, Sebastian trained in archaeology, befor ...

in the UK, and George Greenwade in the U.S. (George came up with the name). Today, there are still only four people who maintain the archives and the TeX catalogue updates: Erik Braun, Ina Dau, Manfred Lotz, and Petra Ruebe-Pugliese. The site structure was put together at the start of 1992 – Sebastian did the main work – and synchronized at the start of 1993. The

TeX Users Group Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...

provided a framework, a Technical Working Group, for this task's organization. CTAN was officially announced at the EuroTeX conference at

Aston University Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston''. for post-nominals) is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first c ...

, 1993. The WEB server itself is maintained by Gerd Neugebauer. The English site has been stable since the beginning, but both the American and the German sites have moved thrice. The American site was first at

Sam Houston State University Sam Houston State University (SHSU or Sam) is a public university in Huntsville, Texas. It was founded in 1879 and is the third-oldest public college or university in Texas. It is one of the first normal schools west of the Mississippi River and ...

under George Greenwade, in 1995 it moved to

UMass Boston The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

where it was run by

Karl Berry Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austrian ...

. In 1999 it moved to

Saint Michael's College Saint Michael's College (St. Mikes or Saint Michael's) is a private Roman Catholic college in Colchester, Vermont. Saint Michael's was founded in 1904 by the Society of Saint Edmund. It grants Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees i ...

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. There it was announced to go off-line in the end of January 2011. Since January 2013, a mirror has been hosted by the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

Steve Peter
''January 2013 TUG news''
Posting. texhax, 2013-01-19. Retrieved 2013-01-21. (no upload node). The German site was first at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

, operated by Rainer; in 1999 it moved to the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (german: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approximately 32,000 stu ...

, also operated by Rainer; 2002 to the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vor ...

, operated by Reinhard Zierke; finally in 2005 it moved to a commercial hosting company since the amount of traffic got too high to get sponsored by a university. The German site is subsidized by DANTE, the

Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX e. V., or ''DANTE e. V.'', is the German-language TeX users group. With about 2000 members, it is the largest TeX users group worldwide. DANTE was founded on 14 April 1989 in the Germ ...

. Today, the main CTAN nodes serve downloads of more than 6 TB per month, not counting its 94 mirror sites worldwide.

References

External links

*
The TeX Catalogue Online
{{TeX navbox TeX Archive networks

History

See also

References

External links