License of the listings package
Hallo Thomas,
the listings package once was excluded because of license problems, but
then readded. Currently it is under LPPL "either version 1.0 or, at your
option, any later version". That's fine.
However, there's an additional "Modification advice" directly after
that, which says:
,----
| % Permission is granted to modify the listings package as well as
| % lstdrvrs.dtx. You are not allowed to distribute a modified version
| % of the package or lstdrvrs.dtx unless you change the file names and
| % provide the original files. In any case it is better to contact the
| % address below; other users will welcome removed bugs, new features,
| % and additional programming languages.
`----
This is more restrictive than LPPL 1.3:
Clause 6.a would allow to keep the name and change the identification to
the "Base Interpreter". And the second option to 6.d is also missing.
I'm not familiar with older LPPL's, but it seems to me that this is not
just a rephrasing of what was in 1.0. The part about renaming is, but an
analogous clause to 6.d.2 is also in 1.0, and this option would not be
allowed for listings.
With the license having additional restrictions compared to LPPL 1.0, I
doubt whether the "or later" clause can really be applied. And the
restriction is quite severe, I think - it creates a problem of big
"invariant sections"; one would have to distribute the whole listings
package even if she only wants to use a couple of clever macro
definitions.
Did you talk with the author about this problem? Dou you think the LPPL
1.3 can be applied without restrictions?
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
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