Re: Towards a new LPPL draft
>
> > Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 19:07:06 +0100
> > From: David Carlisle <davidc@nag.co.uk>
>
> >
> > If you make a program that isn't called tex, are you saying you can
> > edit
> > plain.tex and call the modified file plain.tex without being in
> > contravention of the comment at the top of plain.tex which says
> >
> > % And don't modify the file under any circumstances.
> >
>
>
> David, but what if I have my own file plain.tex outside iniTeX search
> path? I might even not know about this file and write my own paper
> about plain yogurt...
>
>
>
>
>
then it isn't a derived work and nothing in the TeX licence applies.
So be it Of course it would be virtually impossible to have a plain.tex
that worked anything like Knuth's plain that was not a derived work as
the information of what's needed in the file isn't really anywhere else.
The same is even more true (unfortuanely) of latex classes.
If someone has a file article.cls on their system that is totally
independent of latex, then this can happen and there is nothing wrong
with that. The chance that they have such a file that actually works as
a latex class but is not derived from article is almost nill, as the
documentation about what has to be in a latex class is almost all in the
LPPL'ed source of article.cls (classes.dtx).
But the situation with TeX is confused as the files in Knuth's
distribution do have distribution conditions but elsewhere he says its
public domain which is probably inconsistant with some of the
conditions. But it is clear what the intent is. If you modify
te-the-program or plain.tex you should rename them.
David
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