Revised LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL)
I have attached a new working draft for the LaTeX Project Public License
(LPPL) below.
After the debate that took place months ago, I and several members of
the LaTeX Project worked off and on towards solving the problems that
had been raised before. This version, a near-total rewrite, is the
result.
Much of the license is my own writing. I point this out only to warn
against inferring that its mistakes and errors are the fault of the
LaTeX Project. Since I have been the main participant (with Henning
Makholm occasionally participating as well), it's likely that I've
missed glaring errors that are easily corrected. So, don't take this as
a mere request for blessing.
However, I can also predict that that the LaTeX people will likely stand
their ground in places.
I apologize for not following the debates in debian-legal recently, or
responding to requests for information regarding the LPPL, as I've had
to cut back a little on my reading due to personal issues.
LaTeX people: this is a cut-n-paste from Chris's mail of March 3rd. If
I've screwed up, please speak up.
The LaTeX Project Public License
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
LPPL Version 1.3-draft-jal-fmi 2003-03-2
Copyright 1999,2002,2003 LaTeX3 Project
Everyone is allowed to distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but modification of it is limited as
mentioned below under `Choosing This License or Another License'.
[[ jal: If you use this license or any part of it, I will assign
copyright for my portions of this license to the LaTeX
Project. I will provide any assurances to this fact you need
upon request. ]]
PREAMBLE
========
The LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL) is the license under which the
base LaTeX packages are distributed. The LaTeX kernel is distributed
under a similar license called LPPL-kernel.
You may use this license for any work that you have written and wish
to distribute. This license may be particularly suitable if your
work is TeX-related (such as a LaTeX package), but you may use it
with small modifications even if your work is unrelated to TeX.
The section `WHETHER AND HOW
TO DISTRIBUTE WORKS UNDER THIS LICENSE', below, gives instructions,
examples, and recommendations for authors who are considering
distributing their works under this license.
This license gives conditions under which The Work may be distributed
and modified, as well as conditions under which modified versions of
The Work may be distributed.
We, the LaTeX3 Project, believe that the conditions below give you
the freedom to make and distribute modified versions of The Work
that conform with whatever technical specifications you wish while
maintaining the availability, integrity, and reliability of
The Work. If you do not see how to achieve your goal while
meeting these conditions, then read the document `cfgguide.tex'
and `modguide.tex' in the base LaTeX distribution for suggestions.
DEFINITIONS
===========
In this license document the following terms are used:
`The Work'
Any work being distributed under this License.
`Compiled Work'
A version of The Work that has been processed into
a form where it is directly usable on a computer system. This
processing may include using installation facilities provided by
The Work, transformations of The Work, copying of files in The
Work, or other activities. Note that modification of any
installation facilities provided by The Work constitutes
modification of The Work.
`Derived Work'
Any work that under any applicable law is derived from The Work.
`Filename'
The name of an operating system file containing part or all of The
Work.
`Current Maintainer'
The person or persons who are allowed to maintain The Work.
If no Current Maintainer has been explicitly mentioned within
The Work's sources, then Current Maintainer refers to the
Copyright Holder.
`The Base Format'
A Compiled Work that is available and ready for the user to invoke
for running The Work (running = interpreting The Work). It may
depend on Separate Runtime Components for invocation. If not
explicitly specified as part of the license notice, the Base
Format for The Work under this license is the "LaTeX-Format".
`Separate Runtime Components'
External components needed together with The Base Format to run The
Work. A Separate Runtime Component is not considered part of the
Base Format provided it clearly so identifies itself whenever it
is used.
`Distribution'
Making copies of The Work available from one machine to another,
in whole or in part. Distribution includes (but is not limited to)
making any files associated with The Work accessible by file
transfer protocols such as FTP or HTTP or by sharing file systems
such as Sun's Network File System (NFS).
`Modification'
Any procedure that produces a derived work under any applicable
law -- for example, the production of a file containing an
original file associated with The Work or a significant portion of
such a file, either verbatim or with modifications and/or
translated into another language.
CONDITIONS ON DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
===========================================
1. Activities other than distribution and/or modification of The Work
are not covered by this license; they are outside its scope. In
particular, the act of running The Work is not restricted.
2. You may distribute a complete, unmodified copy of The Work as you
received it. Distribution of only part of The Work is considered
modification of The Work, and no right to distribute such a Derived
Work may be assumed under the terms of this clause.
3. You may distribute a Compiled Work that has been compiled from a
complete, unmodified copy of The Work as distributed under Clause 2
above, as long as the Compiled Work is distributed in such a way that
the recipients may use it to install the Compiled Work on their system
exactly as it would have been installed by compiling The Work
themselves.
4. If you are the Current Maintainer of The Work, you may modify The
Work, creating a Derived Work, without restriction. You may also
distribute the Derived Work without restriction, including Compiled
Works based on the Derived Work. Derived Works distributed in this
manner by the Current Maintainer are considered to be updated versions
of The Work.
5. If you are not the Current Maintainer of The Work, you may modify
your copy of The Work, thus creating a Derived Work based on The Work,
as long as the following conditions are met:
a. You must ensure that each modified file of the Derived Work is
clearly distinguished from the original file. This must be
achieved by causing each such modified file to carry prominent
notices detailing the nature of the changes, and by ensuring that
at least one of the following additional conditions is met:
1. The modified file is distributed with a different
Filename than the original file.
2. If the file is used directly by the Base Format when run, and
the Base Format provides a facility for such files to be
validated as being original parts of The Work, then the file
does not represent itself as being the unmodified original
Work. This does not imply that the Base Format must provide
such a facility; only that, if such a facility is available,
it must be used in the normal way and it must enable the Base
Format to validate as being modified. If the Base Format does
not provide such a file validation facility, then the file may
be modified without reference to such a facility.
3. The license notice for The Work specifies that the file may
be modified without renaming, or the license notice for the
Base Format specifies that files of this class (for example,
files that are named a certain way) may be modified without
renaming.
b. You must change any identification string in any modified file of
the Derived Work to indicate clearly that the modified file is
not part of The Work in its original form.
c. In every file of the Derived Work you must ensure that any
addresses
for the reporting of errors do not refer to the Current
Maintainer's
addresses in any way.
6. If you are not the Current Maintainer of The Work, you may
generate a Compiled Work that has been compiled from a Derived Work
modified in conformance with the conditions of section 5, above.
7. If you are not the Current Maintainer of The Work, you may
distribute a Derived Work modified in conformance with the provisions
of Clause 5 above, or a Compiled Work compiled from a Derived Work in
conformance with the provisions of Clause 6 above, as long as both
the following conditions are met:
a. The license you use to distribute the Derived Work must itself
honor the conditions listed in 5a, above, in regard to the
original Work, though it does not have to honor the rest of the
conditions in this license.
b. You must distribute one of the following with the Derived Work:
1. A copy of The Work (that is, a complete, unmodified copy of
The Work) together with the modified file; if your
distribution of the modified file is made by offering access
to copy the modified file from a designated place, then
offering equivalent access to copy The Work from the same
place meets this condition, even though third parties are
not compelled to copy The Work along with the modified file;
2. Information that is sufficient to obtain a copy of
The Work; for example, you may provide a Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) for a site that you expect will provide them
with a copy of The Work free of charge (either the version
from which your modification is derived, or perhaps a later
version).
8.a. Distribution of The Work or any Derived Work in a packed format,
where The Work or that Derived Work(in whole or in part)
is generated by running some other program on that packed format,
does not relax or nullify any sections of this license as they
pertain to the files that are unpacked from the packed format.
b. Note that this license places no restrictions on works that are
unrelated to The Work, nor does this license place any
restrictions on aggregating such works with The Work by any
means.
9. The conditions above are not intended to prohibit, and hence do
not apply to, the updating, by any method, of a file so that it
becomes identical to a later version of that file of The Work as it is
distributed by the Current Maintainer under Clause 4, above.
10. The Work, or any Derived Work, may be distributed under a
different license, as long as that license honors the conditions in
Clause 7a, above.
11. If any Derived Work is distributed under this license, that
Derived Work must provide sufficient documentation as part of the
itself to allow all recipients of that Derived Work to honor the
restrictions in Clause 5a, above, concerning changes from the
original version of The Work.
NO WARRANTY
===========
There is no warranty for The Work. Except when otherwise stated in
writing, The Copyright Holder provides The Work `as is', without
warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not
limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for
a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance
of The Work is with you. Should The Work prove defective, you
assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair, or correction.
In no event unless agreed to in writing will The Copyright Holder, or
any author named in the files of The Work, or any other party who may
distribute and/or modify The Work as permitted above, be liable to
you for damages, including any general, special, incidental or
consequential damages arising out of any use of The Work or out of
inability to use The Work (including, but not limited to, loss of
data, data being rendered inaccurate, or losses sustained by anyone as
a result of any failure of The Work to operate with any other
programs), even if The Copyright Holder or said author or said other
party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
MAINTENANCE OF THE WORK
=======================
The Work has the status `author-maintained' if the Copyright Holder
explicitly states that The Work can only be maintained by the
Copyright Holder.
The Work has the status `maintained' if the Current Maintainer has
made provisions to receive bug reports for The Work (for example,
by supplying a valid e-mail address). It is not required for the
Current Maintainer to acknowledge or act upon bug reports.
The Work changes from status `maintained' to `unmaintained' if the
Current Maintainer of the work cannot be reached through the
provided means of communication for a period of six months and there
are no other signs of active maintenance.
If The Work is unmaintained you can become the Current Maintainer
of The Work through the following steps:
1. Make a reasonable attempt to trace the Current Maintainer (and
Copyright Holder, if the two differ) through the means of
Internet Search, etc.
2. If this search is successful, inquire whether The Work is still
maintained.
a. If it is being maintained, ask the Current Maintainer to update
the communication data.
b. Otherwise, announce your intention to take over maintenance
within the pertinent community. (If The Work is a LaTeX
work, this could be done, for example, by posting to
comp.text.tex.)
3a. If the Current Maintainer is reachable and agrees to pass
maintenance of The Work to you, then this takes effect
immediately upon announcement.
b. If the Current Maintainer is not reachable and if after
three months your intention is challenged neither by the Current
Maintainer nor by other people, then you may arrange for a change
of The Work to name you as the (new) Current Maintainer.
4. If the previously unreachable Current Maintainer returns within
six months, that Current Maintainer must become or remain the
Current Maintainer upon request.
A change in the Current Maintainer does not alter the fact that The
Work is distributed under the LPPL license.
WHETHER AND HOW TO DISTRIBUTE WORKS UNDER THIS LICENSE
======================================================
This section contains important instructions, examples, and
recommendations for authors who are considering distributing their
works under this license. These authors are addressed as `you' in
this section.
Choosing This License or Another License
----------------------------------------
If for any part of your work you want or need to use *distribution*
conditions that differ from those in this license, then do not refer to
this license anywhere in your work but instead distribute your
work under a different license. You may use the text of this license
as a model for your own license, but your license should not refer to
the LPPL or otherwise give the impression that your work is
distributed under the LPPL.
The document `modguide.tex' in the base LaTeX distribution explains
the motivation behind the conditions of this license. It explains,
for example, why distributing LaTeX under the GNU General Public
License (GPL) was considered inappropriate. Even if your work is
unrelated to LaTeX, the discussion in `modguide.tex' may still be
relevant, and authors intending to distribute their works under any
license are encouraged to read it.
How to Use This License
-----------------------
To use this license, place in each of the files of your work both
an explicit copyright notice including your name and the year and also
a statement that the distribution and/or modification of the file is
constrained by the conditions in this license.
Here is an example of such a notice and statement:
%% pig.dtx
%% Copyright 2003 M. Y. Name
%
% This work may be distributed and/or modified under the
% conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
% of this license or (at your option) any later version.
% The latest version of this license is in
% http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
% and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
% version 2003/06/01 or later.
%
% For interpretation of the LPPL the Base Format for this work
% is the "LaTeX-Format".
%
% This work has the LPPL maintenance status "maintained".
%
% This work consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins
% and the derived file pig.sty.
Given such a notice and statement in a file, the conditions given in
this license document would apply, with `The Work' referring to the
three files `pig.dtx', `pig.ins', and `pig.sty' (generated from
`pig.dtx' using `pig.ins'), the `Base Format' referring to
`LaTeX-Format', and `The Copyright Holder' referring to the person
`M. Y. Name'.
To prevent the Maintenance section of LPPL to apply, you could change
"maintained" above into "author-maintained". Or if you seek for
somebody to take over maintenance you may change that to "unmaintained".
Important Recommendations
-------------------------
Defining What Constitutes The Work
The LPPL requires that distributions of The Work contain all the
files of The Work. It is therefore important that you provide a
way for the licensee to determine which files constitute The Work.
This could, for example, be achieved by explicitly listing all the
files of The Work near the copyright notice of each file or by
using a line like
% This work consists of all files listed in manifest.txt.
in that place. In the absence of an unequivocal list it might be
impossible for the licensee to determine what is considered by you
to comprise The Work.
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