[tex-live] British hyphenation not freely distributable?

[Thomas Esser]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 07:35:32PM -0400, Karl Berry wrote:
>     file. Still, this does not make it free software. The file disallows any
>     modifications and this violates our rules.
> 
> The same is true for hyphen.tex.  hyphen.tex starts with:
> % The Plain TeX hyphenation tables [NOT TO BE CHANGED IN ANY WAY!]

In the same way that the "modification is allowed if you rename this file"
was added to plain.tex, it was added to hyphen.tex, as well:

  % The Plain TeX hyphenation tables [NOT TO BE CHANGED IN ANY WAY!]
  % Unlimited copying and redistribution of this file are permitted as long
  % as this file is not modified. Modifications are permitted, but only if
  % the resulting file is not named hyphen.tex.

> result with the same name.  This is obviously ok, or rms would never
> have accepted TeX as free software in the first place.

rms has accepted the unmodifyable tex.web due to the changefile mechanism
that we have. hyphen.tex was known as a problem to him and we are all
glad that this was just recently resolved.

> My guess is that there are many other files with the same sort of
> non-copyright.

Just let me know if you find such things...

Thomas