Re: texlive restrictive licence in main prevents derived works?

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Neil Williams <codehelp@debian.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 8 May 2009 13:10:02 +0200
> Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> wrote:
>
>> > How did that get into main?
>> 
>> Long discussion, please see debian-legal quite some time ago. The point
>> is that modifications are allowed but the modifyied work needs to be
>> renamed (like with tex the program) as long as the status of the
>> packages is "Maintained" plus prominent notices etc.
>> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00079.html
>> and many other links.
>
> OK, it's just a naming thing. Not sure how we can handle that in
> Emdebian - renaming isn't automated, at least not currently.

Renaming won't work, because it's not about filenames, it's about
"identification to the interpreter". In other words, if the license of
foo.sty requires it be distributed together with foo.pdf, you are
allowed to rename the whole thing to bar, but then bar.sty (or still
call it foo.sty if you prefer) must identify itself as "Package bar
[$date]", and you'll get "foo was requested, bar was loaded" fatal
errors. 

> Hence why I'd like to understand the problem and work out how Emdebian
> can have useful packages like docbook-utils without getting into
> problems with tex.

I hope there's a different way to go: Identify which TeX/LaTeX styles
are really needed by docbook-utils, and then let's create a package just
for that. If it's still not small enough, including the docs, then let's
start thinking again. What about

if $this_is_embedian rm $docfiles

in postinst?

> It wouldn't be so bad if texlive-base didn't depend (not recommend)
> texlive-doc-base.

What's the problem with that package?

Package: texlive-doc-base
Priority: optional
Section: tex
Installed-Size: 1216

I don't think the dependency's needed - I think it was just because we
found it easier to have texlive-base Depend on it, instead of every doc
package (which Depend's on texlive-base anyway) Depend'ing on it.

Regards, Frank



-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Debian Developer (TeXLive)
VCD Aschaffenburg-Miltenberg, ADFC Miltenberg
B90/Grüne KV Miltenberg