Re: Encoding the name in the file contents (was Re: Towards a new LPPL draft)
Thomas Bushnell wrote (in two messages)
> I think this is true, provided it's *one* renaming that's in question,
> and not a jillion.
> I've already said that if all that is necessary is changing the
> "latex" command name, then I don't object. That's in the category of
> a trademark (even if the Latex people can't be bothered to get one,
> since that's what they actually seem to want).
You have said that before, and you've had it explained why it's not a
relevant comment.
The majority of LPPL'd software is not by written or distributed by "the
Latex people" (if by that you mean the maintainers, rather than the
users, of latex) and isn't part of the source of LaTeX.
So whether or not the LaTeX project tries (and is successful) in
registering the name LaTeX is not particularly relevant to most
LPPL'd software.
If you agree that the author of a piece of free software can restrict
the names of derived works then you are forced to agree that a software
package such as tetex may end up with multiple naming restrictions.
The tetex distribution you are using for tex consists of many hundreds
of independently distributed works each copyright the original owner,
which Thomas Esser has lumped together and called "tetex". The fact that
some person packages your work along with other works by other people
does not mean that you should lose any rights that you originally had.
So either you accept that the naming restriction is compatible with Free
software or you don't. But I don't see how you can possibly argue that
if you take two pieces of work each with a "rename" restriction and put
them together as a debian package, somehow the result should not inherit
all the licence conditions from its constituent parts.
As we have discussed we are looking at ways of relaxing the rename rule,
making it more clear that the methods described in modguide.tex to avoid
having to rename every file are not in contravention of the licence.
But this is a matter of convenience, not a matter of freedom.
David
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