Re: Revised LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL)

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Frank Mittelbach <frank.mittelbach@latex-project.org> wrote:
> Walter Landry writes:
> 
>  > Actually, this is a good reason for someone to use the standard
>  > facility, not for the license to require the standard facility.  All
>  > that you really care about is that the information gets to the user,
>  > not how it gets to them.
> 
> yes and no. we care that the information gets to the user but we
> also care that it gets to the user in an "expected" way. I grant you
> that there might be more freedom than requiring a certain facility
> to be used. but what we do not accept, for example, is the idea that
> the user has to manually look through source files to find
> individual comments that may be hidden anywhere in literally several
> thousand files.
> 
> you may have read or listen to Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy:
> there is this nice scene near the beginning in which the earth men
> are told that it is their fault not to have looked on Alpha
> Centaurus where the plans have been on display for the last 50 years
> --- we are strongly opposed to a solution that could result in
> something similar for LaTeX. And we don't like to have to fight over
> "X is visible/non-visible enough for the user" and therefore want
> some clear ground rules (restricted to the use in a specified
> context).

Are you saying that if someone comes up with a technically superior
method of informing the user of the modified status of the package
(e.g. a telepathic notifier), a modifier still has to use the
on-screen method?

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu