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Strange license of ukhyphen



Dear all!

TeX live contains since long time the ukhyphen.tex. Unfortunately it has
quite strange license restrictions. Unlimited copying and redistribution
is permitted, but no modification whatsoever. I cite:

   Modifications may be made for private purposes [...]
   but if such modifications are re-distributed, the modified
   file must not be capable of being confused with the
   original.

Till now I would say this is not too strange, but here:

   In particular, this means the filename (the portion before the
   extension, if any) must not match any of :
%        UKHYPH                  UK-HYPH
%        UKHYPHEN                UK-HYPHEN
%        UKHYPHENS               UK-HYPHENS
%        UKHYPHENATION           UK-HYPHENATION
%        UKHYPHENISATION         UK-HYPHENISATION
%        UKHYPHENIZATION         UK-HYPHENIZATION
   regardless of case, and


   the file must contain conditions identical to these,
   except that the modifier/distributor may, if he or she
   wishes, augment the list of proscribed filenames.

This is definitely not DFSG free, and also not FSF free, so normally I
would expect that we cannot include it in TeX live.

Some time ago Frank Küster wrote in an email to Debian bug #139900:

> One remark regarding ukhyphen.tex: TE has told me (approximate
> translation by me) 
> 
> | I remember faintly that I have talked to the president of UKTUG about
> | this in summer 2003 in Hawaii. Obviously nothing has happened since
> | then... 
> 
> Therefore if anybody feels like bothering them again, go ahead.


So if one of you have good contacts with the UKTUG heads I would suggest
discussing this topic again.

Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining AT logic DOT at>             Università di Siena
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