Claire Connelly writes:

I have uploaded Simon Fear's booktabs package to cam.ctan.org/incoming (in booktabs.tar.gz).

The files in that archive should replace the current version of booktabs on CTAN, located in

macros/latex/contrib/supported/booktabs

(Simon didn't send me the readme file -- it can presumably stay the same.)

there isn't a readme file: i guess we have to make do with the excellent documentation found (in the usual way) in the .dtx source.

Booktabs is, with Simon's okay, now licensed under the GPL -- see below for details.

Booktabs is, of course, a package that allows you to produce publication-quality tables (ala _The Chicago Manual of Style_), as opposed to the standard tableaux seen in nearly every book on LaTeX. Relicensing it means that it can once again be included in teTeX (and Debian).

Simon's okay to replace the current version follows:

SF> From: simoncfear@netscape.net 
SF> Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:34:34 -0400 
SF> To: cmc@debian.org 
SF> Subject: booktabs package license 
SF> Message-ID: <0F3134B7.65CB45D5.1077F333@netscape.net>

SF> Dear Claire,

SF> sorry for not responding sooner. Robin Fairbairns phoned
SF> me to remind me, I promised to send it to him this weekend
SF> but my normal server is down, and I don't have his email -
SF> would you please forward this to him.

SF> Please (either of you) insert the necessary LaTeX
SF> copyright where it currently says Copyright Simon
SF> Fear. You have my complete permission to do this. (I
SF> think LaTeX rather than GPL, since it has no meaning
SF> outside LaTeX, but if you prefer GPL, that's fine by me.)
SF> Also, please run and correct the checksum, which will
SF> obviously now be wrong. Last but by no means least, please
SF> suitably edit the .ins file, which currently claims this
SF> is part of the LaTeX distribution (because I stole it more
SF> or less wholesale from one of the main packages).

(this has been done, i presume by claire.)

SF> Sorry I haven't been able to do this myself, if there is a
SF> problem please email both simon.fear@serono.ch and
SF> simoncfear@netscape.com but I may not be able to be online
SF> until Monday week, so fingers crossed this is all OK.

SF> Please keep this package under supported. I know I kept
SF> you waiting but when I get user queries I do still try to
SF> reply by return.

SF> Thanks for your encouragement

thanks to all involved, in helping us find simon, and especially to claire for being the point of contact through which this new version has arrived.

i've installed the files in the tarball, replacing the originals at macros/latex/contrib/supported/booktabs

Robin Fairbairns

For the CTAN team