Jeff > I've seen that some people include the "LPPL 1.2 or any later version" > language into their license notice. Those people would be fine > (although I would recommend that notice be given of this particular > license change as a gesture of goodwill to the community).
No. I don't think the situation here is "fine". The situation you describe is probably the most common and most important case. The sample boilerplate we offer for people to use is of that form. Despite all the legal mumbo jumbo in the licence, the _intent_ of LPPL 1.2 (and 1.0 and 1.1) is I think clear to everyone. If you make any changes, change the name. If you change the name, make whatever changes you like. Now people who put a reference to LPPL in the form you quote are basically saying that they trust us not to abuse our power to make arbitrary changes to the licence that would allow their software to be misused. We have to be careful not to abuse that trust. And tracking down the authors of an unknown number of pieces of software distributed from an unknown number of sites (ctan isn't the only sourc) is not really an option. I think it is clear that (unless we give up on Debian altogether, which I'd rather not do) LPPL 1.3 is going to have to relax the "rename rule" somehow. It is in fact much easier to think of ways of doing that for the core latex, as you can talk about command names (suitably defined) default tex input paths etc, as a way of keeping a modified and unmodified versions distinct, without requiring rules at the level of filenames. But in all the posts I haven't really seen yet a good plan for what to do about the main case: third party files distributed under LPPL. Take geometry.sty for example That is written by Hideo Umeki (who I don't know) and has a notice of the form you quote. It is distributed separately by him, with no connection to the latex3 project. (It's also quite good, but that's not the point here:-) The intention of LPPL 1.2 is that users of latex who go \usepackage{geometry} have some assurance that Hideo's code is going to get loaded. whether or not LPPL succeeds in giving this assurance, or remains free in doing so isn't the point here. The point I want to make is that we have to be very careful while redrafting LPPL to maintain some semblance of the "main idea". As we owe it to the 100's of people who have chosen to use LPPL (no pressure is applied to third party authors to use LPPL they could use GPL or public domain or any otehr licence) An alternative would be to freeze LPPL at 1.2 and have LPPLNEW 1.0 which was used for latex and any authors who could be contacted and agreed to change. I'd really like to avoid this if possible though. Speaking personally I could live with a solution that changed If you make any changes, change the name. If you change the name, make whatever changes you like. to If you make any changes, change the name, or make sure this file will not be loaded by a standard version of <whatever you normally use to run the unmodified version>. If you do either of those things whatever changes you like. so in the geometry case the meaning would be if the file is used with latex, change the name if you make changes. If the file is used with non-latex make arbitrary changes. The problem is I see no way to word such a restriction given that geometry isn't distributed with latex, it's just a file stuck on an archive. Also I'd want the restriction to apply to say pdflatex or elatex, which are formats made with unmodified latex code using non-texs (pdftex and etex respectively) so it isn't really the "user command" that is relevant. By the time someone like Debian is making a "ready-to-run" distribution you can make sense of keeping modified files distincteven if they have the same filename by setting TEXINPUTS appropriately, but I don't see what licence text on the geometry distribution could realistically enforce that. Sorry this message is rather negative, despite possible appearance to the contrary, it is trying to be helpful:-) David _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service. For further information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp or alternatively call Star Internet for details on the Virus Scanning Service. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]