Re: TeX Licenses & teTeX (Was: Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia)

[Boris Veytsman <borisv@lk.net>]

> From: tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
> Date: 05 Aug 2002 13:45:17 -0700

> 
> You can't change tex.web, but you can do *anything* you like to it, as
> long as you do so via patch files.  And in Knuth's wacked out language
> (WEB), he even has a decent automatic patch file mechanism *built in*
> to facilitate this.
> 

[...]

> 
> Now the situation with the LPPL is *very* different.  Unlike TeX, you
> can modify the files as much as you want, but also unlike TeX, you
> must rename the filenames--something TeX never requires.
> 


I think you mix things here a lot.

1. We already discussed the fact that LaTeX does have a patch
   mechanism. We demonstrated it here.

2. I do not understand how "you cannot change this file at all" is
   MORE free than "you can change this file if you rename it". 

I am probably too stupid, but your logic eludes me. 

The things you can do with TeX under Knuths's license files are subset
of things you can do with LaTeX files under proposed LPPL draft. Any
attempts to prove that TeX is more free than LaTeX require the degree
logical juggling that makes me dizzy.

-- 
Good luck

-Boris

Save energy:  Drive a smaller shell.