Frank Mittelbach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I fear you miss the cruical point here: > > Thomas interpretation is that of a crippled fragment of the TeX system that > he wants to judges on its own (ie let's look at TeX "the program") > while Boris, David, and I try to explain that it is our understanding that > Don Knuth views "TeX" as being more than simply tex.web or an executable > derived from that (see below).
I look at the actual granularity of the *actual* licenses. I view GNU, for example, as more than just any one GNU program, but nonetheless, the GPL attaches at the level of a particular program, and not the entire system. There is this desperate idea going on that how you (plural) "view" things has some kind of mystical significance, beyond what the *actual* licenses say. Now how you "view" things is an excellent guide to what any sane hacker will do in modifying the system--but free software is not just about "sane hacking" but also must allow weird strange corner cases, think about the very long haul, and the like. > Thus our point is that building a distribution consisting of the > executable TeX plus a replacement of Computer Modern fonts (eg free > replacements as somebody called them) is against the explicit wish > of Don Knuth and if Debian intends to produce such a package then > (and only then!) it would be better to omit the whole thing and > just put everything into the non-free part of Debian. Nobody actually wants to do this, because it would be insane--to do it now, in present circumstances. That's not the issue, however. And the actual TeX licenses--the actual ones--do not prohibit this, which is a good thing. > Dear friends, I decided to put these fonts into the public domain > rather than to make them proprietary; all I have asked is that > nobody change them, UNLESS THE NAME IS CHANGED, so that every user > can obtain equivalent results on all computer systems, now and 50 > years from now. This is a massively inconsistent sentence. But there is one and only one way to make it consistent. The files are in the public domain--fully, completely--and the rest of the sentence is Knuth's wishes, his desires, his (excellent) advice, but not a legal requirement. > Look at the first paragraph: he thinks that distributing changed fonts under > their original names is a violation of the copyright page of Volume E. How can they be "public domain" and subject to a "copyright page"? Answer: they can't. Conclusion: Knuth doesn't understand licensing at all. > I think Thomas and others are exactly doing that if they claim that > one can (and perhaps should) produce a debian package consisting of > the executable tex (program program only) plus replacements for the > Computer Modern fonts so that if Don Knuth would install Debian > (main) onto his computer he would get something that identifies > itself as "TeX" but would result in producing different output > (linebreaks, look etc) when he is running TAOCP (volume 4) on it. "and perhaps should"? Dammit, don't put words in my mouth. > In my opinion the link provided by Alan, clearly shows what Don doesn't wish > to happen, but if you don't think so, then I suggest that you explicitly ask > him if he thinks it would be okay to package > > - an executable that identifies itself as TeX 3.14... > - replacements for CM fonts under the original names > and/or > - a modified plain.tex (and the resulting TeX format) > > and call the whole thing a TeX installation. Knuth doesn't understand the law at all, so asking him for a legal interpretation would be impossible. Indeed, he doesn't even understand the difference between excellent advice, his personal desires and wishes, and legal requirements. Thomas
