[Gnewsense-dev] Re: [bug #28597] TeX is missing

[Karl Berry]

- I do not agree that ams(la)tex's current license is nonfree.  To me,
  that needs a perverse misinterpretation of the author's intent.  The
  ams license text is the same as Knuth's, written many years ago,
  before the current quagmire of license interpretations: you can
  redistributed modified versions, but have to change the filename.

  We all agree that the license text is unfortunately worded, and that
  those conditions are undesirable.  Debian may consider it nonfree.
  rms already declared similar conditions (the original LPPL) free on
  license-list.html.

- It is technically possible to excise ams(la)tex from TeX Live.  And
  ams(la)tex is not needed for documentation written in Texinfo.
  However, I think it would be a shame for free distributions to release
  such a mangled TeX distribution.  It certainly would not serve people
  who actually want to use TeX (e.g., mathematicians).

- the chance of AMS using their scarce available time to re-release
  older versions with dual-licensing to placate Debian is essentially
  nil, IMHO.  Last I heard, they intend to make the next release
  sometime this year.  We can only hope.