[tex-live] BibTeX economic styles

[Robin Fairbairns]

Arthur Reutenauer <arthur.reutenauer at normalesup.org> wrote:

> > If you are interested in fixing that, contact the maintainers of
> > the economic package to remove these files, and/or the
> > maintainers of the package kcb at hss.caltech.edu (KC Border) to
> > change the license.
> 
>   If I may add my grain of salf, it seems pretty clear from the wording
> of the licence statement that the author really wishes their package to
> be distributed ("other than distribution costs"), hence it seems likely
> that they can be convinced to change the terms of the licence if it's
> represented to them that these very terms prohibit distribution within
> TeX Live (ironically).

i think the collection is the work of more than one author -- not from
attributions, but rather "style", gathered in a cursory skimming of the
packages, last night or so.

that said, i've little experience of a request resulting in a change of
licence; in this case, i wouldn't be surprised if we don't even have
current addresses of the authors ... a far more fundamental problem.

fwiw, we had an angry discussion in the uk tug management committee,
about charging for the first-ever tex live (not called that, back then).
we had set a price which had a mark-up based on the costs of our first
run, for members only, but in the event far more were sold, so that we
made a substantial profit.  the argument was about whether to send a
refund to those who had bought from the first run...

i no longer do anything much with uk tug[*] but that episode has left me
feeling chary of _anything_ non free in the tex world.

robin, running scared

[*] there's a suggestion that uk tug should fund a cloud machine for the
cambridge ctan node.  money ... aaaarrrgh!