Bug#473216: texlive-latex-extra: foilhtml.sty undistributable?
Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it> wrote:
> Mmmh, I am not overly familiar with the LPPL 1.3, unfortunately (I have
> not yet opened that can of worms...).
>
> First of all, I cannot find it in texlive packages.
It's even included multiple times (which is a bug, too, of course), for
example in texlive-latex-base-doc (lppl.txt). Which is a buggy place...
> It really should be copied into debian/copyright files, as mandated by
> Debian Policy.
Yes, and we should switch the copyright file from our own invented
format to the consensus machine-readable format - we create it
automatically, anyway.
> Apart from this, I cannot fully understand your objection, anyway.
> Do you mean that the LPPL has a definition of source that does not
> allow changing its form?
If you want to discuss specific aspects of the LPPL, I think you'd
better
- read it carefully first
- read the (quite lengthy) discussions on debian-legal about it
- discuss it with people who are interested in that, e.g. on
debian-legal.
Myself, I just take it for granted that a license which has been
drafted together by the LaTeX team and some debian-legal regulars, and
been reviewed and finally approved on that list, is DFSG-free. And I
have no interest in discussing this; we have indeed more severe
licensing problems in texlive; the woeful copyright file is just a
symptom of that.
>> Of course, if you apply the same patch, including versin information, to
>> both files and don't recreate the generated file, no one can prove that
>> you didn't abide by the wording of the license, and for sure you did
>> follow the spirit.
>
> What if my preferred form for making modifications to foilhtml.sty is
> *really* the .sty format, rather than its original source?
> I mean, what if I *honestly* prefer modifying the .sty file directly?
That sounds to me a bit like the "What if I prefer to modify the
Postscript file directly?" argument which has for sure been brought up
when people recommended the GPL, a source-aware license, for
documentation.
> %% Copyright Boris Veytsman 1997
>
> That's not really recent.
> Have you got any means to get in touch with the copyright holder (that
> is to say, a currently active e-mail address)?
Not without researching; the TeX developer mailinglists are a
surprisingly well-working source for such information...
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
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