On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 07:01:06PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > How can they be "public domain" and subject to a "copyright page"? > Answer: they can't. Thomas, I respectfully suggest that it is simply not possible to have a worthwhile discussion with someone who does not understand the above fact. We may need to wait for someone in the TeX community to consult _Nimmer on Copyright_, _Black's Law Dictionary_, or an intellectual property attorney before any real progress can be made on this dispute, because at present it appears that they absolutely refuse to accept Debian's assertions as anything but some sort of self-serving deception and, more importantly, as a sin against the church of Knuth. I am sufficiently exasperated with the situation that I would no longer be dismayed if TeX, LaTeX, Computer Modern, and everything else at issue were to be moved into non-free. The first two sentences of DFSG 4 were drafted as a compromise to attempt to get free licensing out of Daniel J. Bernstein and (apparently) the TeX and LaTeX communities. However, neither of these parties have expressed any interest in abiding by the intent of the DFSG in other respects, so it is a misguided and pointless compromise. Is there, in fact, any other software that would need to be pulled from main if DSFG 4 were eliminated and DFSG 3 rewritten as follows: 3. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original work. The license must explicitly permit distribution of modified works in whole or part. The license can require a modified work to bear a cosmetic indication of its modified status. The license must not restrict functional, technological, or algorithmic modifications in any way. ? -- G. Branden Robinson | No math genius, eh? Then perhaps Debian GNU/Linux | you could explain to me where you branden@debian.org | got these... PENROSE TILES! http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Stephen R. Notley
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