[tex-live] let's make some decisions

Karl Berry karl at freefriends.org
Sat Feb 7 17:49:37 CET 2004


    a few days ago i ran into subversion

There are pros and cons to all the version control systems.
It's really a question of what the hosting site supports,
and what hosting site we choose (which are not independent questions).

    or take one of those open document licences

As I've said before: although I would like to do that, the problem with
*any* license where someone holds the copyright is that then that
someone has to get assignments for changes (at least to do a good job).
With public domain, that is not the case.

    (just wondering, what if some publisher prints the docu and then
    claims copyright so that we can no longer distribute it with tex live;

Although a publisher could print it, and could probably claim copyright
on what they printed, that wouldn't affect us.  The original public
domain document remains in the public domain.  Otherwise, the concept of
public domain would be meaningless.  For instance, someone could reprint
the Gutenberg Bible and claim copyright on it.  Or so it seems to me ...

    we haven't sorted out the bad-publishing-cd-boys issues yet

We haven't?  I am not aware of any pending licensing changes.  As far as
I know, any interesting changes to the TL license (such as the various
ones you proposed last summer) would render it non-free -- I talked
about it some with rms.  I hope we don't have to endlessly rehash it yet
again.


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