Frank Mittelbach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Folks, > > it seems to me that by now we are turning around in cycles rehashing arguments > that are important in general (can LaTeX have security problems, yes or no?; > how does one do software development ...) but not with respect to the problem > at hand which still is (to me at least) the following two things: > > 1) determine whether or not the fundamental believes of the LaTeX Mafia > comply with the those of the Debian people
It seems that the fundamental goal that the LaTeX project is trying to accomplish is to make sure that any changes that are made are not "silent". When I run latex on my document (yes, I do use it. I've been using it for about 8 years, and TeX for about 12), I get the output This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3.7) (./double_neutron_saul.tex LaTeX2e <2001/06/01> ... If you required Debian, when making a change, to have it output something like This is DebTeX, a modified version of TeX (./double_neutron_saul.tex DebLaTeX2e, a modified version of LaTeX2e ... then anyone running LaTeX can see that it is not a standard version of LaTeX. This is perfectly compatible with the DFSG, and all that the TeX license requires. The renaming requirement can and likely will be legally circumvented in a way that is transparent to the user. If Debian finds that it has to modify article.cls, Debian will do everything that it can to make sure that modified versions of article.cls are automatically used. Otherwise, there will be a lot of breakage. Certainly I would do it on the systems I maintain. > Axiom: after all discussions the LaTeX Mafia, the LaTeX users that > spoke on this list, and the Debian users that mailed me privately, > still believe that the requirement for renaming files LaTeX source > files when doing modification for distribution is essential and > helpful. If file renaming is a real axiom, then I don't think that Debian and the LaTeX Project can come to an agreement. DFSG #4 has never been interpreted as allowing that kind of restriction, and I don't see why Debian should make an exception for LaTeX. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
