Re: User's thoughts about LPPL

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Javier Bezos <jbezos@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> Walter Landry said:
> 
> > Here is a hypothetical.  Let's say that someone wants to add support for
> > Klingon into Latex.  So they hack something together which, by necessity,
> > changes a few standard files, and it works for them without breaking anything
> > else.  You reject the patch because it isn't really a good i18n solution, it
> > only works for Klingon.  You also think that Klingon is a silly thing to add
> > support for, so you'll probably never add it in.  However, for the people
> > interested in writing Klingon (e.g. Hollywood screen writers and trek fan
> > fiction writers), this is a good solution.  In this case, you are preventing
> > people from having seamless support for Klingon.
> 
> This is a really good argument *in favour* of LPPL! If someone
> adds support for Klingon by modifying the LaTeX kernel, the
> resulting documents will have a restricted distribution
> because they won't compile correctly in other systems. This
> is an _actual_ restriction. But if instead a package -- extending
> and modifying latex as desired -- is created and called from
> the document, it will complain about a required but missing
> package and you will be able to locate and get the package,
> and then typeset the document. Otherwise, you will be frustrated
> because you could have a 'correct' document displaying nothing
> without any explanation.

You missed the point, which is that the changes in the Latex kernel
had to be made in order for Klingon (or whatever language) to work.
Don't tell me that there will never be a need to change the internals
in order to make something work.  You can't anticipate everything that
will happen in technology for the 100 years.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu


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