Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Sebastian Rahtz
On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 04:05:36PM +0100, Jose M. Alcaide wrote:
> >I think the extra license statements in multicol and listings are just
> >plain silly, and don't know why the authors wasted their time
> >on them.
> 
> Well, asking for a voluntary donation for the LaTeX3 project is not a 
> bad idea, in my opinion.

Putting in an advert for LaTeX3, saying it needs donations, is not
at all a bad thing, no. Dressing it up as a confusing "moral license"
is not, IMHO.

-- 
Sebastian Rahtz  OUCS Information Manager
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431



Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread David Kastrup
Thomas Esser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> > Fundamentalism is a Bad Thing. About politics, religion, licensing
> > or anything. And the fact is that teTeX 2.0 have lost usefulness
> > because of such fundamentalism.
> 
> I will check if the license of the listings package is ok for free
> software and put the package back if this turn out to be true.

Sounds like it to me.

> I don't agree with your opinion on licensing. Being free software is
> a great plus for teTeX. All those nonfree packages are still
> available to TeX users, they are just not part of teTeX. On the
> other hand, teTeX is now free and can be included as part of a
> book-cdrom, linux distributions, other free software packages etc.

As to the fundamentalism: much free software (TeX being a notable
exception) nowadays consists of reimplementations of proprietary
software.  If you take fundamentalism aside, there is no reason to
start developing a replacement for proprietary software if your
investment of time and money to get free software of equal utility and
quality will be more than a license for the proprietary software would
have cost you.  The fundamentalism of Stallman and others is
responsible for software now being available which is the better
choice even for non-fundamentalists.

You consider yourself morally superior because you don't let your
choices be reined in by fundamentalism.  But without the
fundamentalists paving the way beside the established paths, you would
not even have a choice.

> To Robin: no I don't think that multicol.sty is nonfree.  I remember
> that there was a lengthy discussion about that with the outcome of
> the current license. Is there any reason to recheck the license of
> multicol.sty?

Well, the licence has been changed to address the previous
objections, and so it was appropriately reassessed.

> Shall we really restart it all?

Since Carsten Heinze did the same IIRC (rewording all things that
previously were requirements into wishes), it would be fair to give
listings.sty the same reassessment under those changed conditions
that multicol.sty received.

>From taking a look at the wording in TeXlive7, I fail to see a
problem.  The "additional" terms are

%% However, if you distribute the package as part of a commercial
%% product or if you use the package to prepare a commercial document
%% (books, journals, and so on), I'd like to encourage you to make a
%% donation to the LaTeX3 fund. The size of this `license fee' should
%% depend on the value of the package for your product. For more
%% information about LaTeX see http://www.latex-project.org
%%
%% No matter whether you use the package for a commercial or
%% non-commercial document, please send me a copy of the document (.dvi,
%% .ps, .pdf, hardcopy, etc.) to support further development---it is
%% easier to introduce new features or simplify things if I see how the
%% package is used by other people.

"I'd like to encourage you" is not a license requirement.  "[...]
please send me" can hardly be seen as a requirement in that context.

I just checked the current source on CTAN which also contains

% Modification advice.
%   Permission is granted to modify the listings package as well as
%   lstdrvrs.dtx. You are not allowed to distribute a modified version
%   of the package or lstdrvrs.dtx unless you change the file names and
%   provide the original files. In any case it is better to contact the
%   address below; other users will welcome removed bugs, new features,
%   and additional programming languages.

This is labelled as "advice", and indeed, it contains nothing that
would not already be demanded by the LPPL.

In short, I do not see how the package places additional restrictions
beyond the LPPL.  It asks for a few things in words that are clearly
not intended to form an actual _requirement_, and it goes to some
length to again stress a few points about the LPPL.

If I am mistaken in my assessment, I'll be glad to here just where.
But in my opinion I really am unable to see right now where the
problem is.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum



Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Jose M. Alcaide
El sábado, 15 febr, 2003, a las 14:19 Europe/Madrid, Sebastian Rahtz 
escribió:
I think the extra license statements in multicol and listings are just
plain silly, and don't know why the authors wasted their time
on them.


Well, asking for a voluntary donation for the LaTeX3 project is not a 
bad idea, in my opinion.

--
* Jose M. Alcaide  //  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  //  [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* "Go ahead... make my day" --  Harry Callahan *


Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Sebastian Rahtz
On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 01:05:51PM +0100, Jose M. Alcaide wrote:

> >sigh.  i expect thomas has been being got at by the debian licensing
> >fanatics.  i presume there's no multicol.sty either, since that has
> >similar terms.
> 
> Fundamentalism is a Bad Thing. About politics, religion, licensing or 
> anything. And the fact is that teTeX 2.0 have lost usefulness because 
> of such fundamentalism.

People made fun of Richard Stallman for 10 years because he
insisted on putting free software into a proper legal framework.
But I think many people now believe he was right to make a stance,
and not make compromises.

I think the extra license statements in multicol and listings are just
plain silly, and don't know why the authors wasted their time
on them.
-- 
Sebastian Rahtz  OUCS Information Manager
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431



Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Thomas Esser
> Fundamentalism is a Bad Thing. About politics, religion, licensing or 
> anything. And the fact is that teTeX 2.0 have lost usefulness because 
> of such fundamentalism.

I will check if the license of the listings package is ok for free
software and put the package back if this turn out to be true.

I don't agree with your opinion on licensing. Being free software is a
great plus for teTeX. All those nonfree packages are still available to
TeX users, they are just not part of teTeX. On the other hand, teTeX is
now free and can be included as part of a book-cdrom, linux distributions,
other free software packages etc.

To Robin: no I don't think that multicol.sty is nonfree. I remember that
there was a lengthy discussion about that with the outcome of the current
license. Is there any reason to recheck the license of multicol.sty? Shall
we really restart it all?

Thomas



Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Jose M. Alcaide
El sábado, 15 febr, 2003, a las 10:14 Europe/Madrid, Robin Fairbairns 
escribió:
sigh.  i expect thomas has been being got at by the debian licensing
fanatics.  i presume there's no multicol.sty either, since that has
similar terms.


Fundamentalism is a Bad Thing. About politics, religion, licensing or 
anything. And the fact is that teTeX 2.0 have lost usefulness because 
of such fundamentalism.

And... did anyone contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]?


we (ctan people) did, long ago, and the upshot is the licence
statement you quote.  listings isn't going to go to the nonfree tree
on ctan, if i have anything to do with the matter.


I am glad to hear that.

Cheers,
JMA
--
* Jose M. Alcaide  //  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  //  [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* "Go ahead... make my day" --  Harry Callahan *



Re: listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Robin Fairbairns
sigh.  i expect thomas has been being got at by the debian licensing
fanatics.  i presume there's no multicol.sty either, since that has
similar terms.

> And... did anyone contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]?

we (ctan people) did, long ago, and the upshot is the licence
statement you quote.  listings isn't going to go to the nonfree tree
on ctan, if i have anything to do with the matter.

r



listings.sty removed ?

2003-02-15 Thread Jose M. Alcaide
Just after updating to teTeX 2.0, I found that the listings.sty package 
is missing. In fact, I found this entry in texmf/ChangeLog:

Sat Dec  7 11:02:32 CET 2002
* update hyperref
* cbgreek fonts
* added cwebman.dvi, cwebmac.tex
* added lettrine package
* listings package removed for copyright reason. The copyright
  first claims to be lppl, but incompatible terms follow. 
Somebody
  should contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Well, I downloaded the current version of listings.sty, and its license 
reads:

%% This file is distributed under the terms of the LaTeX Project Public
%% License from CTAN archives in directory  macros/latex/base/lppl.txt.
%% Either version 1.0 or, at your option, any later version.
%%
%% Permission is granted to modify the listings package as well as
%% lstdrvrs.dtx. You are not allowed to distribute a modified version
%% of the package or lstdrvrs.dtx unless you change the file names and
%% provide the original files. In any case it is better to contact the
%% address below; other users will welcome removed bugs, new features,
%% and additional programming languages.
%%
%% The listings package is free software.
%%
%% However, if you distribute the package as part of a commercial
%% product or if you use the package to prepare a commercial document
%% (books, journals, and so on), I'd like to encourage you to make a
%% donation to the LaTeX3 fund. The size of this `license fee' should
%% depend on the value of the package for your product. For more
%% information about LaTeX see http://www.latex-project.org
%%
%% No matter whether you use the package for a commercial or
%% non-commercial document, please send me a copy of the document (.dvi,
%% .ps, .pdf, hardcopy, etc.) to support further development---it is
%% easier to introduce new features or simplify things if I see how the
%% package is used by other people.

Where is the problem with this license? It states clearly that it is 
free software. Is the phrase "I'd like to encourage you to make a 
donation to the LaTeX3 fund" the real problem? IMHO, beginning with 
"I'd like..." removes any enforcement to make a donation.

Please note that the listings.sty package is widely used. I think that 
removing it from the teTeX distribution because of such a little issue 
with license wording is a too radical decision.

And... did anyone contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]?

Cheers,
JMA
--
* Jose M. Alcaide  //  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  //  [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* "Go ahead... make my day" --  Harry Callahan *