Re: tetex/tex license
Glenn Maynard writes:
> I've split this off, since I don't think mixing the LaTeX and (Te)TeX
> licensing problems is a good idea.
they are related but you are right this is a separate issue and should be
discussed separately.
> On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 04:27:57PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote:
> > > I disagree. DFSG 4 was, as I understand, drafted with explicit
> > > reference to the situation with TeX, which is similar in many ways.
> >
> > TeX is not similar at all (Why do people keep bringing this up?). The
> > only thing you have to do is not call it TeX. You can then modify
> > files in place all you want.
as far as TeX is concerned I tried to put up references to what could be
called a license and copyright notices in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200207/msg00321.html
and Walter is wrong, it concerns file names and therefore has thesame problems
as LaTeX with DSFG 4 (or even more so in fact).
> There seems to be a lot of confusion about TeX's licensing. tetex's
> debian/copyright says it's GPL, and:
>
> "The individual parts of this distribution often have their own
> copyright. Please look into the respective files for their copyright."
>
> (Does that mean s/copyright/license/? Either way, should the individual
> licenses or copyright notices be listed in debian/copyright anyway?)
it must copyright and licenses, simply because
there are individual files with different licenses in there.
listing them, would be a nice try but hopeless as you would need to keep track
of i would guess more than 1000 individual works that end up in tetex texmf
trees. That would not be automatable and as a manual process it would be
always wrong. One could and most likely should however mention te licenses of
the main parts and perhaps list which licenses you might find.
> It mentions tex.web and mf.web having the filename restriction. That's
> not GPL compatible, so there may be a problem there, whether or not it's
> eventually deemed DFSG-free. I don't know the relationships, though.
>
> On top of that, both of these files don't actually have the renaming
> requirement; they simply say "Copying of this file is authorized only
> if (1) you are D. E. Knuth, or if (2) you make absolutely no changes
> to your copy." Other files also have this notice.
>
> tex.ch has a notice about changes that isn't very specific. (It mentions
> "copying correct implementations", but then says you need to rename changed
> copies.)
>
> Is anybody investigating this? If Knuth has since decided to change to
> a naming requirement ("don't call it TeX"), this might be fixable. If
> he's changed to a filename requirement, then it's in the same boat as
> Latex. Either would be better than the current text in the files.
think the current text in the TeX files is indeed very bad and unclear,
however there are clearer statements elsewhere (especially in the copyright
pages of the printed form of these files). --- again see the message
referenced above
frank
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