Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia
> From: Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>
> Date: 20 Jul 2002 20:15:30 +0200
>
> > - to fork you have to rename every package under LPPL
>
> > all of them wrong (and explained over and over again by now)
>
> It has been *asserted* over and over again that this is wrong, but
> that assertation does not seem to be consistent with the actual
> license text we're discussing. It says that each *file* must be
> renamed if it is changed, and since each package is a file that has
> the package name as its file name, it logically follows that one would
> have to rename all packages.
>
I thought about your question, and now I think I understood what you
mean.
Suppose I changed file foo.sty in LaTeX. I need to rename it when I
change -- it is not a difficult task. However, it happens that another
file bar.sty uses foo.sty, so I need to change bar.sty AND rename
it. Then I need to change baz.sty that references bar.sty etc. Is this
what you mean?
If so, there is another, easy way to do this change, completely in the
spirit of LPPL. Since we are changing foo.sty, we are changing the way
LaTeX kernel works. Therefore we need to change and rename latex.ltx
anyway. Now the loading of files in LaTeX is done by the commands
\RequirePackage and \usepackage. Right now \RequirePackage{foo} loads
the file foo.sty. It is easy to change the definition of this command
in the kernel to the following: if the file foo.hck exists, load it,
otherwise load foo.sty. Then you need to rename ONLY the files you
modified (from foo.sty to foo.hck) which is not too difficult.
I repeat: you can do ANYTHING you want by redefining LaTeX
macros. Admitted, sometime it requires a certain level of
knowledge. However, I do not think that the freedom of modification
must be interpreted as the ease of modification by the people who do
not understand the language. If you want this, then somebody might
require the ease of modification by the point and click methods.
--
Good luck
-Boris
Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the yard.
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