[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: User's thoughts about LPPL



On Jul 16, Boris Veytsman wrote:
> To summarize: I think LPPL strikes a necessary balance between
> standardization and flexibility. This balance was tested by 20+ years
> of TeX, which is licensed under exactly same conditions.

I don't think anyone here has a problem with a license that says "If
your LaTeX doesn't pass such and such a validation suite, you can't
call it LaTeX, but you can do whatever else you want to do with it."

I think the real issue is that the LaTeX project is trying to use its
license to enforce a norm of good behavior by distributors that would
be much better left to certification marks or a Knuthian statement
that "if you break it, both pieces are yours and you are the one who
will get bitched at, not us."  I think that's being obfuscated behind
Branden's establishment of hypotheticals that can be dealt with
through \renewcommand and the like.

I think Frank et al's concerns could be addressed fairly easily by
requiring distributors of modified versions of the entire LaTeX suite
to document the changes and include the location of that documentation
in the diagnostic output of latex, and requiring distributors of
modified versions of separately-distributed style/class files to do
the same, with a waiver of the documentation requirement if the
file/suite is renamed (thereby not misrepresenting the modified
version as any longer being a substitute for the original).  This
certainly would pass the DFSG and would clearly inform users of what
sort of LaTeX they're getting.

For example, if I modify article.dtx, I must either rename it (thereby
no longer calling it article.dtx) or include diagnostic output showing
where on the local filesystem a file is that clearly documents the
differences between article.dtx as distributed by the LaTeX3 project
and my article.dtx (for example, "corrected typo in line 300 that
stopped articles with fewer than 83 pages from having more than 17
footnotes".)

Then again, maybe I'm missing the point :-)


Chris
-- 
Chris Lawrence <chris@lordsutch.com> - http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/

Attachment: pgp7iGZMNEeXp.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: