On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 12:01:09PM +0200, Frank Mittelbach wrote: > Even here on the list I noted that several people (which I presume to to be > debian-legal regulars) used "public domain" in different senses. There is only one sense. > > Someday, Professor Knuth should be contacted and asked to remove the > > statement "I have put these systems into the public domain" because it > > is clearly not true. > > I think that would be a very good idea. > > well, the "individual files" Claire is referring to are files like cmr10.mf > which states > > % THIS IS THE OFFICIAL COMPUTER MODERN SOURCE FILE cmr10.mf BY D E KNUTH. > % IT MUST NOT BE MODIFIED IN ANY WAY UNLESS THE FILE NAME IS CHANGED! > > I too think that the TeX system doesn't violate the DSFG but it does come back > to accepting that it is not a violation of DSFG to require that individual > files of a work can only be distributed in changed form when their filenames > are changed. Nice try, but the contention is that Knuth's licensing elsewhere supersedes the terms expressed within the file itself. Have you never heard of dual-licensing? If you disagree, or if this understanding is not clear and unambiguous -- if the copyright license files that Knuth wrote cannot clearly be interpreted to apply to each and every file in TeX, METAFONT, and Computer Modern, respectively -- then the Computer Modern fonts are NOT DFSG-free. Is it your assertion that Knuth's license doesn't in fact apply to all of TeX, METAFONT, and Computer Modern? If so, to which files does it apply, and what method are you using to make this determination? If I write a program and license it to you under the LPPL, but the program's source code happens to have the phrase "All Rights Reserved" in it, does that render your license null and void? Can I then take you to court for infringing my copyright if you distribute my program under the terms of the LPPL that I extended to you? I repeat: the file renaming requirement is not DFSG-free, and you wanting it to be so will not make it so. DFSG 4 does not permit it. So, please, cut it out with the sophistry. A file renaming requirement is not DFSG-free and never will be unless the DFSG is amended to make it thus. -- G. Branden Robinson | Debian GNU/Linux | Yeah, that's what Jesus would do. branden@debian.org | Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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