[tex-live] Re: babel's greek nonfree

Roozbeh Pournader roozbeh@sharif.edu
Sun, 6 Oct 2002 20:39:36 +0330 (IRT)


Apostolos, I hope you're not taking any offense,

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Apostolos Syropoulos wrote:

> If you consider it nonfree, then it is nonfree. I have my own reasons
> for disallowing this particular publisher to use things that I have
> (partly) created.

It's not me, we're talking about a certain definition. Almost all Free
Software/Open Source guidelines in the world consider such a licensing
nonfree. There are very honorable people who like to use such licenses,
but that would create problems for many others who want to use TeX Live.
Should I check the license of each individual package on the TeX Live CD I
want to *use*, to make sure no one has listed me or my employer somewhere
in a comment in a header? If we allow a software with a *restriction on
usage* (please note that we are not even talking redistribution) on TeX
Live, we should announce it properly and explicitly, and also that we
allow such licenses.

It would be great if you consider changing the license, so your
well-written package can be included in TeX Live, Debian GNU/Linux, ...,
and also people like me can use some of your source code without a need to
restrict that certain publisher to use their software.

(And believe me, if debian people become aware of the fact, they may
remove the entire teTeX from debian!)

> And of course there are many things on this planet that are free but far
> less free than this "nonfree" software.

I agree, but we should stick to some definition of free. For TeX Live,
DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines) was chosen, which is a famous base
and is a very simple test. They call a software free if it meets certain
criteria. You can find about it at:

	http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

In short, they are: possiblity of free redistribution, availablity of
source code, allowing derived works, no discrimination against persons or
groups, no discrimination against fields of endeavor, not being specific
to the distribution, and not contaminating other software.

roozbeh