MusiXTeX's license
Hello,
I would like to revisit the issue of the Debian package "musixtex"
again. It is currently in non-free.
Copyright: (from musixdoc.dvi, MusiXTeX User's Manual, p.2)
~~~~~~~~~
Although one of the authors contested that point once the common work had
begun, MusiXTeX may be freely copied, duplicated and used. However, since
it is intended to be a _freeware_ you are not allowed to sell it, and the
fee you may ask for distributing it must be limited to maintenance,
support and duplication costs. You may take parts of it to include in
other packages, but no packages called MusiXTeX may be distributed under
this name if different from the original distribution (except obvious bug
corrections or text font adaptations for specific implementations).
MusiXTeX may be included in further commercial packages, provided that no
fee is charged for MusiXTeX itself.
I contacted the author Daniel Taupin <taupin@lps.u-psud.fr>
a long time ago, who clarified some issues, but seemed reluctant
to change the wording of the license. At the time, I sent him a rather
long-winded e-mail, but my wordiness definitely didn't help.
It was placed in contrib for some time, but was moved into non-free
when Debian 2.0 was released.
If any of you have time and are willing to contact Daniel directly,
that would be wonderful, as I don't have time (final exams + Debian
Chinese) and don't have much diplomacy skills either. Thanks a
million! :-)
Anthony
--
Anthony Fok Tung-Ling Civil and Environmental Engineering
foka@ualberta.ca, foka@debian.org University of Alberta, Canada
anthony_fok@catholic.org Keep smiling! *^_^*
Come visit Our Lady of Victory Camp -- http://www.olvc.ddns.org/
or http://www.ualberta.ca/~foka/OLVC/
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