Bug#263549: floatflt is non-free
On 05.08.04 Josh Triplett (josh.trip@verizon.net) wrote:
Hi,
> The floatflt package has the following license, seen in
> /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/floatflt.sty :
>
> %% Copyright (c) 1994-1998 by Mats Dahlgren <matsd@sssk.se>.
> %% All rights reserved. See the file `floatflt.ins' for information
> %% on how you may (re-)distribute the `floatflt' package files.
> %% You are not allowed to make any changes to this file without
> %% explicit permission from the author.
>
> This is clearly non-free, violating DFSG3. The file "floatflt.ins"
> is not included in the binary package or the source package;
>
No. It is in tetex-src.
> the version at
> http://www.tug.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/floatflt/floatflt.ins
> gives the following license (also found on the author's website):
>
The version from tetex-src tells me:
% Copyright (c) 1994-1998 by Mats Dahlgren <matsd@sssk.se>,
% http://www.homenet.se/matsd/ . All rights reserved.
%
% This package may be distributed under the terms of the LaTeX Project
% Public License, as described in lppl.txt in the base LaTeX distribution.
% Either version 1.0 or, at your option, any later version. The authors
% of floatflt.dtx and floatflt.ins (the complete `floatflt' package
% distribution) can not be held responsible for any consequence of your
% using any of these files, or files created from these, including hardware,
% software, and data damage. You may not make any changes to the files
% floatflt.dtx or floatflt.ins. You are allowed to make changes to the
% `\documentclass' and/or `\usepackage' commands of the file `floatexm.tex'.
% You may incorporate the code from these files in other files under
% different names, provided the original authors are given full credit for
% their work and that you yourself take the complaints from the user(s)
% of your file(s). You may freely distribute the files floatflt.dtx and
% floatflt.ins, provided that You always distribute `floatflt.dtx' and
% `floatflt.ins' together at the same time.
%
Yes, this is not DFSG either. I'll contact the author about this.
However, it won't help us in the actual situation. I guess we have to
generate another new orig.tar.gz....
> (Note that not including this license in debian/copyright would be
> a bug even if the license was Free. Also, note that the source
> code, consisting of floatflt.ins and floatflt.dtx, was not included
> in the source package.)
>
Yes, we're on the way to write a proper copyright file. #218105 and
#258972, but I'm afraid that won't be finished before sarge.
The source is delivered separately in tetex-src.
> After removal, the author should be contacted and asked if he would
> be willing to consider relicensing the files under the current
> version of the LPPL. The CTAN entry for floatflt claims it is under
> the LPPL, but I found nothing that actually places it under that
> license.
>
I'll contact the author.
Thanks for the report,
Hilmar
--
sigmentation fault
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