[XeTeX] Performance of ucharclasses

Keith J. Schultz keithjschultz at web.de
Wed Oct 26 09:02:12 CEST 2011


Hi Tobias, All,

This is getting a little OT, so please forgive.

For clarity, we have several issues at stake here.

	1) Copyright
	     This will control distribution and the use thereof.
	      In our case we can use the package for creating texts.
	      We may distribute the unmodified code with our code!
	      But, the third party does not have the right to the package
	      as they wish without obtaining it themselves. 
	      For the legally minded this last point has plenty of dispute in it,
	      but depends on the exact license. 
	      Propriety Fonts are a good example.


	2) Intelectual Property Rights
	     This controls modification of code and use thereof.
	      In our case, the author discourages this, and basically
	      denies us the right to do it.
	      Just putting a wrapper around it or just changing a few
	      names or lines, making it more eficient will generally not
	      constitute a new idea or product.
	       This is a very hairy topic.
		Look, at the patent wars in the mobile phone market for
		examples!

Mike should chime in here and clarify. He should also change his license to
be more specific. 

regards
	Keith. 
	      
Am 25.10.2011 um 17:32 schrieb Tobias Schoel:

> 
> 
> Am 25.10.2011 10:30, schrieb Keith J. Schultz:
>> O.K. I will jump in here.
>> 
>> Intellectual property rights are often a great big gray zone.
>> Maybe, it is time the author of the package speaks up himself
>> what is meant.
> That would help.
> 
>> 
>> Also, it does seem clear if the code being used or parts thereof are from a
>> different party, who may or may not have rights which they will enforce.
>> 
>> Furthermore, the author at least signals, s/he wants to keep control of the code.
>> The use of "discouraged" indicates that the author or a third party may or may not
>> go to court over the modified version. It is very clear that the author does not want
>> modified versions being distributed. I admit that stronger legal terms should have been
>> used.
> It's clear that he wants to keep control of the code of the  package called ucharclasses . What is not clear at all, is, whether one might borrow freely from this package when writing a different package. This issue is not covered exactly as this. It is allowed to use the package freely. A definition of "use" is missing. One might argue, that copying the text, changing it and calling it the foobar package, is use.
> 
>> 
>> As the author has used this fuzzy legal terminology, it very hard to say how a judge might
>> rule. It is like parking a car just because the car is not parked inside of a no parking zone
>> you could still get a fine.
> Exactly: copyright laws still apply. So a restriction in a software license is usually nonsense: Everything that is forbidden by law need not be forbidden by license. Everything that is not forbidden by law can't be forbidden by license. (This might depend on the judicion, so it's probably wrong in the USA.)
> 
>> 
>> It is sane not to include this package in TeXLive as to avoid the complications above, as
>> you never know want a contributor may do with the code and unknowingly cause problems
>> and why should TeXLive put effort into a package that is not freely available, to ensure that they
>> right side of the law.
>> 
>> regards
>> 	Keith.
>> 
[snip, snip, original post]




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