[tex-live] License auditing: Consequences

[Frank Küster]

Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>> In order to be able to express properly the urgency and consequences of
>> non-relicensing, I would like to get some information about how TeXLive
>> used to handle, or is going to handle such cases.  Debian is in the
>> fortunate position to posess a non-free archive, which - although not
>> part of Debian proper - serves users well.  Therefore we may be able to
>> sort things into the non-free category more lightheartedly than
>> TeXLive. =
>
> but surely, if texlive is a part of debian tex strategy, confusion is
> engendered if there's no clear split between free and nonfree, in
> texlive?

Well, some confusion will stay anyway: Unless the FSF presents a revised
version of the GFDL which is acceptable to the majority of Debian
developers, GFDL-licensed documentation in texlive will be in a separate
non-free Package in Debian, anyway.  So there's not *much* more
confusion on the users' side if some input files are in non-free, too.
However, I'd rather avoid this, both because I generally dislike these
"my type of freedom, your type of freedom" discussions, and because it
would be much more work.

>> - saying that they are licensed under license $FOO (mostly LPPL), but at
>>   the same time "explaining" what that means in words that never really
>>   matched the proper meaning of $FOO,
>
> i mark such packages as other.
>
>>    or only old versions
>
> i tend to let such packages stand, provided they have the standard
> rubric "or any later version, at your convenience".

I had at least one without such a rubric.  I'm not sure whether this has
been resolved meanwhile.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)