[l2h] Maintenance of latex2html

[Roland Stigge]

Hello Ross,

thanks for your reply.

On Wed, 2003-10-15 at 02:29, Ross Moore wrote:
> Nikos has had nothing to do with the LaTeX2HTML software since
> 1996 or so.
> The license statement has not been changed since then.

I wonder if (and fear that) any change to it would be needed to be
supported by him because of him beeing the only original author
mentioned in LICENSE. (Call me nit-picking but that's the way Debian
cares about licensing issues, as Chris and Steve pointed out. They
correctly got the point.)

> > Ross Moore (extended the package)
>  That's me; most, but not all,  changes since 1998 have been through me.

Great. I've got it! :)

> OK; since I don't work through the Debian site, I'm not aware of these
> so-called 'bugs'.

That's perfectly OK. Also the fact that many of them are "bogus" bugs.
I'm sorry that Debian wasn't very active on this the last months. It
would be great if you could help us a bit with the mentioned list, but I
recommend to first sort out the licensing issue. I volunteer to adopt
the Debian package but won't invest more time first if Debian finally
has to drop latex2html because of the license clause (which would
actually be really bad).

(For the "upstream" tagged reports, scroll to the end of the list.)

> The latex2html mailing list is the perfect place
> to get help on such issues.

Of course. Unfortunately, we can't force our users to go somewhere else
but have to keep the "bug" reports until the problem is solved.

> Now, I've just seen the current discussion on licensing, and agree
> with the poster who said that it is mostly just nit-picking.

But please note that Steve also clearly pointed out the problem.
Intellectual property right is always nit-picking to some amount. :)
Please consider that IMHO other distributions have the same problem.
Some just don't care about certain licensing issues until someone points
them out.

> The wording of the statement to which you object does not, in my mind,
> prevent you from distributing LaTeX2HTML as a free addition to anything
> else. [...]

Well, that would be your personal view (some on the list also pointed
out the difference). If the license phrasing doesn't change, Debian will
definitely remove latex2html from the distribution, and I actually
couldn't do anything against that.

> It is just the LaTeX2HTML distribution itself that cannot be charged-for.
> I would object to seeing a cost-listing that includes something like:
>   LaTeX2HTML $200
> when all that the commercial distributor has done is to include
> the software on a CDROM.

It being at least _possible_ to charge $200 is exactly what Debian
requires from Free Software. Besides the GPL, please consider the LPPL
or any other free license approved at
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/.

> Charging $200 for a process that installs LaTeX2HTML correctly,
> for use in another overall process, is not something that I would
> object to.

In fact, the result would be the same for you. Someone making profit
(indirectly) from your work. But that's another issue.

> Like the GPL, the license is not meant to be an impediment to the
> distribution or use of the software, but just a way of ensuring
> that credit remains with those who did the work.

Contrary to the latex2html license, the GPL (and the other mentioned
licenses) fits our needs, here.

> I'm happy to discuss this further, but a change in the license
> should be discussed on the LaTeX2HTML mailing list, before any
> action be taken.

I invite you to! And all the readers of this list.

Thanks in advance.

bye,
  Roland
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://tug.org/pipermail/latex2html/attachments/20031015/4e9b1299/attachment-0001.bin