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Re: summary of software licenses in non-free



On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 11:11:52AM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:
> [Cc:ed to debian-legal, as the detailed examination of licenses is more
> on-topic for that list; d-l folks, feel free to drop the reference to
> d-vote if further nitpicking is required ;)]
[...]
> On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 06:57:09PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
> 
> > some people expressed doubt about the claims i made regarding the actual
> > contents of non-free.  i said that very few packages were proprietary, that
> > almost all were 'almost-free' (aka 'semi-free').
> > sgb             modified files must be renamed and clearly identified.  why is this in
> >                 non-free?
> 
> ISTR this license element came up for discussion in the context of the
> LaTeX license; I /thought/ the conclusion was that requiring changes to
> filenames in the source was ok, but that requiring changes to filenames
> in the binary package was not.  Debian-legal, please correct me if I'm
> wrong.

I don't believe that's correct.  A requirement to change the filename at
any stage was dropped from the latest draft of the LPPL that Frank
Mittelbach posted to debian-legal (summer 2003).

I personally[1] would maintain that a requirement to change a filename
is an unacceptable restriction on one's freedom to modify the work.  The
LaTeX Project no longer appears to be interested in contending this
issue, and I know of no other copyright holder of software packaged by
the Debian Project who does.

[1] other subscribers to -legal may feel differently

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |
Debian GNU/Linux                   |         Ab abusu ad usum non valet
branden@debian.org                 |         consequentia.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |

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