On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 05:04:22PM -0400, William F Hammond wrote: > Sorry I don't know the official name for "debian-legal@lists.debian.org". > :-) You've got it. In Debian, our lists don't *have* names. :) > (And is it the case that one or both of these lists is filtering the > name of the other list from message headers? IMO discussion on this > issue _should_ _be_ sent to both.) Well, that's a nice idea, but the LATEX-L list rejects postings from not subscribers. > The major point is that both (1) LaTeX classes and (2) LaTeX > packages, as well as the associated literate programming wrappers and > "latex" itself, are _very_ _different_ animals from what is normally > called a program, i.e., a C program, a GNU Emacs Lisp program, ... . That's true; however, no matter what kind of animal you are, your license must comply with the DFSG if you want to be part of the Debian distribution. > Neither GPL nor GPPL makes much sense for LaTeX objects. (What's the GPPL?) That may be true, which is probably why I haven't seen anyone suggest that the LaTeX folks just drop this silly license of theirs altogether and just use the GNU GPL. A lot of people in Debian think the GNU GPL is a great license, but I don't know of any Debian developers who think that it is the only license that should ever be used, period. If the GNU GPL doesn't meet your needs you shouldn't use it. So, please don't confuse Debian's Free Software Guidelines, or the current discussion, with advocacy of the GNU GPL. Our position is that we would very much like to see your license comply with the DFSG. > LaTeX users do not make such changes. Something in document source > called "\newcommand" is the LaTeX user's way to customize. > > Let's not confuse the LaTeX user with the person who changes a LaTeX > package without renaming it, thereby causing the user's 15 year > archive of LaTeX source to break. DFSG 3 does not make such distinctions. Under the DFSG, users must be free to alter a program's source code, even if his or her alterations would be imprudent from a technical standpoint. > > I hope you'll agree with me that this statement is a subjective > > analysis. > > Isn't it rather a rather practical and pragmatic analysis based on > long experience? It could be. I recongize Mr. Mittelbach's name, and for that reason I endeavor to treat him with respect and deference. However, no authority, no matter how high a degree of esteem in which I hold him, will persuade me to abandon my efforts to interpret the DFSG as conscientiously as I can. > Please work with Frank on this. I remain optimistic that a mutually agreeable solution can be reached. I think one of the biggest problems we're dealing with is simply a difference in culture and terminology. I've seen a little bit of talking past each other. For instance, some of us in Debian can't imagine why you'd want some of the stuff in a license text that you have, and likewise some LaTeX folks, it appears, can't imagine why anyone would put it anywhere else. Once we have all worked our way into similar semantic contexts we'll be better able to establish our levels of agreement on a functional basis. -- G. Branden Robinson | To Republicans, limited government Debian GNU/Linux | means not assisting people they branden@debian.org | would sooner see shoveled into mass http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | graves. -- Kenneth R. Kahn
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