[tex-live] License questions: dvi2tty and vita
Alexander Cherepanov
cherepan at mccme.ru
Fri Oct 2 01:01:37 CEST 2009
Hi all!
A couple of more serious license questions.
--- dvi2tty ----------------------------------------------------------
>From README:
The program is basicly an improved C version of the pascal
program written by Svante Lindahl (see README.ORG).
...
dvi2tty is licensed under the GPL version 2. It has had a history of many
authors, I am just one of the latest maintainers.
>From dvi2tty.c:
* dvitty - get an ascii representation of a dvi-file, suitable for ttys
*
* This program, and any documentation for it, is copyrighted by Svante
* Lindahl. It may be copied for non-commercial use only, provided that
* any and all copyright notices are preserved.
*
*
* UUCP: {seismo,mcvax,cernvax,diku,ukc,unido}!enea!ttds!zap
* ARPA: enea!ttds!zap at seismo.CSS.GOV
* or Svante_Lindahl_NADA%QZCOM.MAILNET at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
* EAN: zap at cs.kth.sunet
*/
/*
* dvi2tty
* Copyright (C) 2003 Marcel J.E. Mol <marcel at mesa.nl>
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
* as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
* of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
*
*/
>From the Catalogue (dvi2tty.xml):
<license type='gpl' checked='2009-06-15' file='dvi2tty.c'
version='3.5.1' username='robin'
note='the nocommercial claim is supposedly trumped by the
later gpl one'/>
Are there any reasons for such a note, some more background? Mentioned
terms (quoted above) are from different authors so it doesn't look
like a confusion on the part of a (single) copyright holder but more
like a confusion of a later author about previous terms. Looks more
like 'undistributable' to me.
---- vita ------------------------------------------------------------
>From the Catalogue (vita.xml):
<license type='other-free' note='just..."do not distribute modified
version"'
checked='2009-01-01' file='vita.cls'
version='1996-10-09' username='robin'/>
>From vita.cls:
%% (C) Copyright 1995, Andrej Brodnik, ABrodnik at UWaterloo.CA. All
%% rights reserved.
%%
%% This is a generated file. Permission is granted to to customize the
%% declarations in this file to serve the needs of your installation.
%% However, no permission is granted to distribute a modified version of
%% this file under its original name.
First, "This is a generated file" but it contains enough comments to
not be classified as "nosource", right? Second, there is no explicit
permission to distribute a modified version. It's somewhat like
knuthian terms but calorie.sty with very similar terms is classified
as other-nonfree (see below).
---- calorie ---------------------------------------------------------
(Not in texlive, for comparison.)
>From calorie.sty:
% Copyright (c) 1994 by Shuji Aonuma.
% Reports or requests to aonuma at kodama.issp.u-tokyo.ac.jp
%
% Unchanged copies of this file may be freely distributed.
% You may modify a renamed copy of this file.
>From the Catalogue (calorie.xml):
<license type='other-nonfree' checked='2009-04-26' file='calorie.sty'
version='1.3' username='robin'
note='distribute modified version only after name change'/>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexander Cherepanov
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