Re: TeX Licenses & teTeX (Was: Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia)
> Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 16:35:50 -0400
> From: Simon Law <sfllaw@engmail.uwaterloo.ca>
> That is silly. You can definitely modify the behaviour of the C
> compiler through the C preprocessor. You can do it in C++ with
> templates. Perl allows you to fiddle with its symbol table (typeglobs)
> so that you can redefine the language on the fly. You can even change
> the behaviour of already compiled programs under UNIX with LD_PRELOAD.
> But Frank has already (sensibly) admitted that this is not free enough.
>
Let me ask you this question. Suppose the libfoo-dev.deb package has
only include files (no compiled libs and objects). The author of the
package requires that absolutely no changes are done to the
includes. However, you have the right to distribute patches to any
foo*.h to be loaded at compile time. Moreover, you are allowed to
distribute /usr/include/fixedfoo along with /usr/include/foo, and
there is no restriction of putting into Makefiles
CFLAGS += -I /usr/include/fixedfoo
Would you consider libfoo-dev.deb to be free?
--
Good luck
-Boris
"Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully."
-- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse
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