[diegosouzapw]

Summary

This draft PR retires the built-in edgetts integration from
release/v3.8.50 while its provenance/licensing review remains on HOLD.
It is a runtime retirement, not only a notice:

• deletes the EdgeTTS WebSocket executor and its dedicated positive-protocol test;
• removes the provider, the edgetts dispatch format, all 11 voices, the
  edgetts_token public credential, and speech-combo reachability;
• removes current README/guide claims and the Stryker entry;
• replaces the deleted positive test with a retirement contract covering the registry,
  handler, combo filtering, and UI-derived catalog;
• preserves historical CHANGELOG entries and adds a new v3.8.50 retirement fragment.

The generic /v1/audio/speech endpoint remains available. gTTS, AWS Polly,
ElevenLabs, and every other registered speech provider remain in place.

Measured catalog delta

Metric	Exact base 0915890	PR head
Built-in speech providers	25	24
Built-in speech models/voices	63	52
EdgeTTS voices	11	0
gTTS models	1	1
AWS Polly models	4	4
ElevenLabs models	2	2

RED -> GREEN evidence

Step	Evidence
RED 1	The new retirement test failed because getSpeechProvider("edgetts") still returned the provider and its 11 voices.
GREEN 1	Removing the registry entry made the catalog/UI-derived retirement contract pass and changed the measured speech catalog from 25/63 to 24/52.
RED 2	The handler contract failed because the unknown-provider error still advertised edgetts.
GREEN 2	Removing the import, dispatch branch, message entry, token, and Edge-only client-IP plumbing made the handler contract pass.
Combo guard	A combo containing only edgetts/en-US-AriaNeural now returns No speech-capable targets; the full speech-combo file passes 5/5.

Provenance and license triage

This is a technical provenance triage, not legal advice and not a license
clearance.

Source snapshot	Local relationship/evidence	Upstream-declared license	Technical disposition
rany2/edge-tts@4bdb8e4, including drm.py and LICENSE	PROVEN adaptation: the deleted local executor explicitly stated that computeSecMsGec() was ported from drm.py::generate_sec_ms_gec(). The upstream DRM implementation later changed in cb6715f.	LGPL-3.0	RETIRE / HOLD pending qualified review.
edge-tts-universal@593dfba, including drm.ts, communicate.ts, and LICENSE	PROBABLE exposure/adaptation: the deleted local executor named this project as a protocol reference and exposed a materially similar DRM/WebSocket protocol surface. This classification is intentionally not a legal conclusion.	AGPL-3.0-or-later	RETIRE / HOLD pending qualified review.
MsEdgeTTS	The deleted executor also named msedge-tts as a protocol reference.	MIT	Context only: MsEdgeTTS's MIT license does not relicense material originating in either source above and is not treated as clearance.

Validation

Check	Result
Focused Node tests: retirement + handler + gTTS + combo	PASS 47/47
Derived catalog/UI + registry + AWS Polly controls	PASS 40/40
Total focused scope	PASS 87/87
npm run typecheck:core	PASS
ESLint on every changed TS file	PASS
npm run check:docs-all	PASS (existing soft drift warnings remain non-blocking)
Provider consistency script via Node/tsx	PASS: 270 registry entries, 352 canonical providers, 0 exceptions
npm run check:changelog-integrity	PASS
npm run check:tracked-artifacts	PASS
GITHUB_BASE_SHA=091589... npm run check:test-masking	PASS: 1 modified, 1 deleted, replacement verified
Full local Vitest	INFRA/FLAKY HOLD: 404/405 passed; one unchanged provider-family-combos case exceeded its fixed 20 s timeout locally and repeated 10/11 when isolated. The official Vitest job on the exact base SHA passed. No local-green claim is made.

The npm provider-consistency wrapper itself could not start because this
hardlinked worktree's Bun package lacks its postinstall binary. The same gate
script was executed successfully through Node/tsx without mutating shared
node_modules.

Controls and HOLDs

• Preserved: /v1/audio/speech, gTTS, AWS Polly, ElevenLabs, other audio
  providers, dynamic speech providers, and historical CHANGELOG provenance.
• Product HOLD: EdgeTTS must not be restored without a qualified
  provenance/license decision and an implementation plan consistent with that
  decision.
• Release/base state: the branch is based on the current exact
  release/v3.8.50 SHA 091589089cd134a94df9f6cdab9ba562b2cefd18.
  The release branch already has open base-red tracking in
  #9985; this PR does
  not claim the release base is green.
• This PR is intentionally draft and must remain open. No merge, automerge,
  tag, release, or deploy is requested here.