[tex-live] AFPL stuff on DVD (was: Acrobat reader on DVD???)

Klaus Hoeppner klaus at dante.de
Sun Sep 14 18:12:36 CEST 2003


Hi Karl,

On Sun, Sep 14, 2003 at 10:30:08AM -0400, Karl Berry wrote:
> Whether it can be used in the main TeX Live and whether it can be
> included in the ctan/ subdir are two different things, since the ctan/
> subdir is a "mere aggregation" of unrelated software.  It certainly
> can't be used in TL proper, because of its many restrictions; that's all
> I was saying before.

Manfred and me are just starting to talk about whether being able
(or wanting) to include the AFPL things, so we are open to opinions.
In past, it was included in CTAN snapshots, as my interpretation of
AFPL point 2(a)(ii) is that it is ok, to put it on a CD that is sold alone
(the Lehmanns case) or it must not be sold as part of a journal
or book (what was the case with the users groups that send it out
with their jounals -- I asked Peter Deutsch if the membership fees
would be regarded as payment, but he said he wouldn't).
But as far as I see it was never intended to include 3 or 4 CTAN
CDs into a book or journal.

> A little bit later, distributing it on a cd with a book is also
> explicitly disallowed, so including AFPL GS would cause trouble in that
> regard as well.

Definitely.

> Gsview is also distributed under the AFPL now, at least the current
> versions.  (I seem to recall Fabrice mentioning that Russell changed the
> licensing terms fairly recently.)  So no gsview either.

GSView would be the only thing I would be really sorry about to throw
away. We should find out wether there is a distributable version.
Regarding letting out AFPL GS I don't see a problem, as GNU GS does
everything I need. When I did the first snapshots, there was still
a difference in quality (like AFPL GS being able to embed Type1
fonts into pdf and GNU GS not).

Regards
Klaus


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