[texhax] JPEG preview of XeLaTeX page?

Peter Davis pfd at pfdstudio.com
Fri Jul 8 23:24:40 CEST 2011


On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 8:35 AM, Gordon Haverland <
ghaverla at materialisations.com> wrote:

> On July 7, 2011, Peter Davis wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Martin Schröder
> <martin at oneiros.de> wrote:
> > > 2011/7/7 Peter Davis <pfd at pfdstudio.com>:
> > > > workflow.  Unfortunately, I can't include anything that
> > > > uses Ghostscript, since that can't be redistributed.
> > >
> > > [citation requested]
> > >
> > > GhostScript is under the GPL nowadays...
> >
> > I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that Ghostscript
> > can't be redistributed as part of a commercial software
> > package.  I'd be happy to be wrong on this point, and I'm
> > going to have another look at the GPL to see if I am.
>
> There are commercial products which contain GPL software.  The
> television in my living room uses Linux as the OS, and the
> original software in my TP-Link router was Linux (now running
> OpenWRT).  Occassionally one sees news articles about something
> commercial having GPL software in it, ending up in discussions
> with people knowledgable in law and the GPL.  As I understand
> things, the usual problem is that these commercial operations are
> not set up in such a way, that people can get access to the GPL
> software if they so choose.
>
>
I'm not a lawyer, but what I see here:

http://ghostscript.com/doc/current/Commprod.htm

suggests that it would be *very* difficult or impossible to include
Ghostscript with a commercial application, even if all that application does
is issue some Ghostscript commands on external files via the 'exec'
function.  There seems to be a little wiggle room, based on the bullet
points in section 3, Examples of Distribution.  I'd have to read the
relevant sections of the full GPL (or rather, pay a lawyer to read it) to
get a better understanding.

-pd


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The Tech Curmudgeon
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