Re: TeX (Knuth) copyright
Rafael Laboissiere <rafael@icp.inpg.fr> writes:
> If TeX is really GPL, it is even
> better, and I will tell that to the author.
TeX itself is most assuredly *not* GPL. I don't have TeX source code
lying around, but I seem to remember it saying something along the lines
of `You can distribute me but if you change anything such that the
resulting program doesn't pass the TeX regression tests you may not call
me TeX'. Actually it is forbidden to change the TeX source file,
tex.web, but the Web system Knuth uses for writing code allows for
patches through so-called `change files'.
Other components of what we commonly call `TeX' are licensed under
different terms. I don't think there's a file that spells everything out
in detail but it has been the world's uncontested understanding for a
very long time that TeX is `free software'. It is even free enough to
have been part of the `GNU system' -- according to RMS -- since the very
beginning of GNU.
The GPL thing probably applies to the bits that people like Karl Berry
or Thomas Esser wrote, such as the path-searching library (which, I
believe, is actually licensed under the LGPL since web2c 7.0),
installation tools etc. The copyright notice in the package is quite
misleading and should probably
be changed.
Anselm
--
Anselm Lingnau ......................... lingnau@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster then any other invention, with
the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila. -- Mitch Ratcliffe
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