Re: TeX Licenses & teTeX (Was: Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia)
On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 11:49:00PM -0400, Boris Veytsman wrote:
> As I understand it, Knuth put in the public domain the *code* of TeX,
> Metafont, CM fonts etc. Fragments of his code, his creative ideas and
> insights are freely used in many derived works. However -- and here is
> the most profound idea -- Knuth realizes, that TeX is not a sum of
> pieces of code, it is an entity, a whole. This entity is what Knuth
> did not want to put in PD. He wanted to retain the full rights on this
> entity.
Are you talking about a compilation copyright here? Those are tricky
beasts. I've never before seen a compilation copyright with a license
that allows modification, and I wonder how it would work.
> The proof that Knuth perfectly understood what he was doing is in the
> fact that he trademarked the name TeX -- something that LaTeX3 should
> do with respect to LaTeX. For you this trademarking and putting TeX in
> public domain may seem contradictory -- for me it makes sense.
... but trademarks and copyrights are different legal constructs.
I don't see how this connects to your previous paragraph at all.
Richard Braakman
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