Re: LaTeX & DFSG
On Mon, 2002-07-22 at 13:46, Walter Landry wrote:
> Jeff Licquia <licquia@debian.org> wrote:
> > We already have to vet upstream whenever they release new versions of
> > software. For example, the Python license changed after 1.5.2 to become
> > incompatible with the GPL; we skipped Python 1.6 and 2.0 because of it,
> > and only accepted 2.1 when the license changed again to become
> > compatible with the GPL again.
>
> The Python license changed, so, of course, we would have to review the
> license. We didn't have to review the thousands of lines of source
> code.
This is true; however, this part of the license is something the LaTeX
people seem to be willing to change, or at least think about.
Still, we also have this problem with other non-copyleft licenses, such
as BSD. I believe there were some non-free files in XFree86 at one
point, for example, which had to be removed from our tarball.
> > We're not arguing for a special exemption; we're arguing for a new
> > license. If we get that, we won't need any exemptions.
>
> I just want to make sure that we don't allow a license that can only
> be applied to LaTeX. When Thomas Bushnell writes:
>
> tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) wrote:
> > I concur with the FSF's judgment, BTW--because of the existence of the
> > filename mapping feature, the hurdle of renaming files (while
> > exceedingly obnoxious) is not so high that it renders the package
> > non-free.
>
> it seems like Thomas thinks that the LPPL is OK for LaTeX, but
> probably not for anything else. That troubles me.
I don't think the filename thing is necessarily LaTeX-specific; it's
specific to all macro languages that have attributes like LaTeX.
Nevertheless, I do intend to get some mention of the filename
substitution feature into the LPPL in some way or another, to ensure
that the LPPL file rename feature only applies to software with this
ability. Does that allay your concern?
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