[tex-live] "other-free" licence definition in the catalogue

Robin Fairbairns Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk
Sat Nov 4 09:37:45 CET 2006


we (the ctan team) have added a new "licence" definition to the
catalogue (though there aren't any entries using it yet...).

we will label as "other-free" packages whose authors appear to have
intended to make them freely available, but "got it wrong", or didn't
even try to specify use of one of the standard licences (e.g., just said
"this package may be used and distributed freely").

the intention is not to subvert anyone's efforts towards licensing of
"correctly" specified packages -- the idea is to have a less draconian
category than "other" has been up to now.  you may care to compare the
two entries

  http://www.tex.ac.uk/help/catalogue/licenses.other.html
  http://www.tex.ac.uk/help/catalogue/licenses.other-free.html

as you will see, other-free does no more than suggest that it's more
likely to be safe using packages thus categorised than does other.

robin


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