[Savannah-hackers] [ 101040 ] LPPL possible for LaTeX-related project?

[nobody]

Support Request #101040, was updated on 2002-Jul-02 15:18
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Category: None
Status: Closed
Priority: 5
Summary: LPPL possible for LaTeX-related project?

By: oneiros
Date: 2002-Jul-05 12:15

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[Is it possible to get the changes to Support Requests by
e-mail too or is this system http-only?]

The problem for a LaTeX package with the GPL is that the GPL
allows modificiation of files (and distribution of modified
files) without renaming the files. But LaTeX documents load
packages by name, so when a user requests a package foo,
LaTeX searches for the file foo with a certain extension
(normally foo.sty). 

Users transmitting their input files to others (e.g.
publishers) expect that the packages used by their files
produce more or less the same result at the receivers end --
which is impossible if they or the receiver are using a
changed version of some package with the same name. 

The LaTeX project has written a detailed discussion about
their problems with the GPL and their reasons for the LPPL;
see http://www.latex-project.org/guides/modguide/modguide.html

The project I'm thinking about setting up at Savannah is the
pdfTeX interface for the LaTeX graphics subsystem. This is
used by the command \usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx} which
loads a file pdftex.def -- so users expect that their
pdftex.def behaves the same as the pdftex.def on most other
computers.

I hope I've made myself clear...

Best regards
   Martin

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By: loic
Date: 2002-Jul-04 18:12

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Debian/1.0.0-3

We may accept licenses not listed on the GNU pages if there
is a good reason. Could you please tell us why using a GNU
GPL compatible license is a problem for you ? 

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