Re: [gNewSense-users] unclear licence of AMSLatex (fwd)

[Karl Goetz]

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:20:33 +0200
Sam Geeraerts <address@hidden> wrote:

> ben schreef:
> > Frank Kuester, the maintainer of the Debian texlive-base package,
> > clarified some things in a comment to the Debian bug report
> > (#477060):
> > 
> > Sorry, I don't have time to subscribe and really join in. Just two
> > points:
> > 
> > - With respect to the question of softlinks: All kpathsea-based
> > systems (that's at least TeXLive and its Mac relatives, I don't
> > know about MikTeX) support an alias file.  This allows you to load
> >   amsfoo-renamed.cls if amsfoo.cls is requested.  LaTeX, however,
> > will still complain that the wrong package has been loaded *if* the
> > package identification in \ProvidesPackage has been changed.
> > 
> >   Therefore, IMHO, the wording of the LPPL does make sense to
> > preserve file integrity, but the "Knuth wording" used by AMS does
> > not; the mere requirement to change the filename is moot.
> > 
> > - In all systems following the TDS, path does matter, and moving a
> > file from $TEXMF/tex/latex/ams/ to $TEXMF/myengine/latex/ams/ will
> > make it inaccessible for LaTeX in a usual setup.
> 
> So if we'd have to rename directories there would be a problem. I
> assume that's not AMS' intention.
> 
> Renaming files wouldn't be a problem if AMS allows aliases and
> keeping the package ID. AFAICT, they do in the current wording, but
> the question is: is that also what they mean?

My other thought on this goes something like:
With AMS proposed licence, is it possible to write a *replacement* file
with the same name, and include it in the bundle. it looks like it is.
This is the same 'problem' PHP have with thier licence requirements (a
complete PHP rewrite can be called something with php in the name, but
a derivative can't).
kk

-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group

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