tds copyright

[K. Berry]

[follow-up to both...]

    i dont this quite covers the spirit of what you propose, which is to
    excerpt chunks. how about also:

But it's not just taking chunks as-is that we need to allow. I think
people should be able to take the text *and change it*.  For example, I
want to delete some parts of the summary section, add some others, and
make other changes to make it work best in the context of my manual.

    Permission is granted to use portions of this document
    in documentation for TeX-related software, provided
    a clear statement is included that this represents part of the TDS,
    and provided a reference to where to obtain the full text is included

Requiring a reference to the original seems ok, I guess.
But I still want to allow modifications.

    The intention here is presumably to allow yourself to do what you want
    to do, namely to paraphrase the tds document in the web2c
    documentation. 

Well, that's the occasion for the discussion, but it's not just me.

    Unfortunately this would allow people to distribute
    documents that propose different structures rather than just modified
    descriptions of the same structure.

I don't see that as a problem. (Presuming the modified version is not
represented as being the TDS.)

    While we can not of course prevent people from proposing alternative
    structures, I dont think we should be seen to be encouraging
    it. (Multiple standards is worse than no standard at all:-)

I don't think that allowing people freedom to change the TDS document is
encouraging multiple standards.

The primary work in creating a standard document is not writing down the
text.  If someone else wants to come up with an alternative TDS and
promulgate, more power to them.

    Why not just leave the default conditions as they are but (as tds
    author) give yourself permission (as web2c author) to use the document
    as you see fit, irrespective of the general distribution conditions.

Because I don't think I, either as TDS or Web2c author, should be a
special case. What if Eberhard (for example) wanted to excerpt/modify
the TDS document? What if J. Smith writing a book on TeX wanted to do
so?  I think all of these are perfectly reasonable activities that we
should allow.

As long as the modified text isn't represented as being the TDS, I don't
see a problem.