Bug#67443: License problem with listings (maybe RC bug)
Package: tetex-extra
Version: 1.0-10
Severity: normal
[Cc:ed to the author]
Hi,
The version of listings in current potato (testcycle 2) has a serious
license problem.
E.g., /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/listings/listings.sty contains:
%% Please read the software license in listings.dtx or listings.dvi.
%%
%% This file is distributed freely. You are not allowed to take money for
%% the distribution of this file, except for a nominal charge for copying
%% etc..
%%
%% This file is free for any non-commercial use. Commercial use needs (i)
%% explicit permission of the author of this package and (ii) the payment
%% of a license fee. This fee is to be determined in each instance by the
%% commercial user and the package author and is to be payed as donation
%% to the LaTeX3 project.
This seems clearly non-DFSG-free.
Solution would be to include a current version of listings which is is
licensed under the terms of the LPPL (LaTeX Project Public License),
a DFSG-free license.
(ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/listings/)
However... I now see that even the new version has the following
restriction:
% Modification advice.
% Permission is granted to change the listings package as well as
% lstdrvrs.dtx. You are not allowed to distribute any changed version
% of the package or any changed version of lstdrvrs.dtx, neither under
% the same name nor under a different one. Tell the author of the
% package about your local changes: other users will welcome removed
% bugs, new features and additional programming languages.
Not sure if this makes it non-DFSG-free again.
I didn't set the Severity: to important since it clearly is the intention
of the author to have his package under a free license. But IANAL, not
sure if the intention counts at all...
Cheers,
Colin
-- System Information
Debian Release: 2.2
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux morphin 2.2.15 #1 Sat Jul 15 12:12:01 PDT 2000 i686
Versions of packages tetex-extra depends on:
ii dpkg-perl 0.1-3.0 Perl interface modules for dpkg
ii tetex-base 1.0-10 basic teTeX library files
ii tetex-bin 1.0.6-7 teTeX binary files
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