Re: TeX Licenses & teTeX (Was: Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia)
Branden Robinson writes:
> Perhaps it strains your credulity, but that's all Debian really
> requires. Such statements from a copyright holder are a license, every
no it does not. but as there are interpretative statements around (by Don) as
well as copyright notices on individual files and copyright statements on the
copyright pages of his books (displaying the source code for several of his
works) etc etc.
> What matters is whether the statement is clear and unambiguous. Is it
> clear that Professor Knuth meant what he said, when he said "anybody can
> make use of my programs in whatever way they wish, as long as they do
> not use the names \TeX, \MF, or Computer Modern. In particular,
> any person or group who wants to produce a program superior to mine is
> free to do so. However, nobody is allowed to call a system \TeX\ or
> \MF\ unless that system conforms 100\%\ to my own programs, as I
> have specified in the manuals for the trip and trap tests. And nobody
> is allowed to use the names of the Computer Modern fonts in Volume~E
> for any fonts that do not produce identical {\tt.tfm} files. This
> prohibition applies to all people or machines, whether appointed by
> TUG or by any other organization."
>
> 1) Is the above statement of reliable authorship? Can we trust that
> Professor Knuth actually said it? I'm willing to stipulate that he did.
fine
> 2) Does the above statement by Knuth grant permission to "anybody" to
> "make use of" his programs "in whatever way they wish, as long as they
> do not use the names \TeX, \MF, or Computer Modern."? I'm willing to
> stipulate that it does.
fine
> 3) Does the above statement by Knuth grant permission to "anybody" to
> use the names "\TeX" or "\MF" as long as "that system
> conforms 100\%\" to his "own programs", or "Computer Modern" as long as
> the font produces "identical {\tt.tfm} files" [to Knuth's own Computer
> Modern]?
i already said in a previous post that this is not what is written above, he
clearly speaks of "names of ... fonts" plural
so he is not talking here about the collective work name "Computer Modern" but
of the font names.
> Can we take Professor Knuth at his word, or not? I would think so, but
> if it is the consensus of the TeX community that Knuth didn't actually
> mean what he says, I'm willing to re-examine my conclusion.
i think it says what it says but not what you sumarize. and that fits with
% 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!
and it fits with the copyright page statement of volume E which talks about
cmr10,... (ie font names!)
and more importantly it fits with the idea of ensuring that
\font\foo=cmr10
does pick up cmr10 from Knuth in a TeX system ie one with an unchanged
plain.tex format.
[ by the way, the LPPL extension of this idea: to a global file remapping
feature of TeX would be available here too, eg by using a different starting
format one could of course have the above load some other file than cmr10.tfm)
> > It is nice to learn all those new words, first troll now sophistry.
> > However the situation seems to me just the other way around, you are trying
> > sophistry here: file renaming requirments are what TeX and friends brought to
> > the world of free software (perhaps not DSFG free, but free anyway). Don Knuth
> > hasn't formalized it in a proper (or improper) license but he has made it very
> > clear that that is what he would like others to follow when using reusing or
> > changing his work(s).
>
> It seems obvious to me that the above quoted statement from Knuth is
> referring to the names of works, not files. After all, I don't know of
> a filesystem that can properly render \TeX in its filenames. Moreover,
> from historical context it is clear to me that Knuth is pursuing a kind
> of "poor man's trademark" in "TeX", "METAFONT", and "Computer Modern".
most of that is indeed referring to collective works (that also have names)
like TeX Computer Modern. But that doesn't mean that both layers are
present. That statement also doesn't explicitly says that plain.tex (ie the
plain TeX format) is considered to be part of TeX
that remark with the historical context is not clear to me as the names for the
collective works have been trademarked (Computer Modern not i think)
frank
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