[tex-live] free software, DFSG

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello Sebastian,

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 01:25:35PM +0100, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> >Does that mean eTeX has to go?
> 
> no, in that case we throw out the original :-}

of course I understand the joke but perhaps it's not wise to say such
things anyway.

The tendencies to be "holier than Stallman" cause bad perception of free
software community and confuse people.  Only a few hours ago I thought
that Knuth's licence is not free.

Karl had to explain it to me:
> That's incorrect.  The "Knuth license" where something must be renamed
> before it can be modified, is free software according to the FSF.  (Not
> GPL-compatible, but that's a different story.)  This is implicit because
> rms has always said that the GNU system will (and does) include TeX.  He
> also stated that the LPPL (even the first version) was free software.
> 
> Not that I'm saying he likes or recommends the "must rename" licenses;
> he doesn't.  But he still considers them free.
[...]
> I agree with Sebastian that the "must rename" license is problematic in
> practice and does not actually prevent any abuses.  However, it is still
> free (and I didn't see anything from Sebastian stating the contrary).

During the hot discussion  in cstex list I mentioned in my earlier mails,
someone said that he is afraid that free sw community will come with a
TNT (TNT's not TeX) as an echt-free replacement for TeX.

That's why I think these times are not good for such jokes...

Have a nice day,
	Stepan