134 lines
6.2 KiB
Text
134 lines
6.2 KiB
Text
COPYING CONDITIONS FOR TeX Live:
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To the best of our knowledge, all software in the TeX Live distribution
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is freely redistributable (libre, that is, not necessarily gratis),
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within the Free Software Foundation's definition and the Debian Free
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Software Guidelines. Where the two conflict, we generally follow the
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FSF (see [*] below). If you find any non-free files included, please
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contact us (references given at the end).
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That said, TeX Live has neither a single copyright holder nor a single
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license covering its entire contents, since it is a collection of many
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disparate packages. Therefore, you may copy, modify, and/or
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redistribute software from TeX Live only if you comply with the
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requirements placed thereon by the owners of the respective packages.
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To most easily learn these requirements, we suggest checking the TeX
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Catalogue at: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/ (or any
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CTAN mirror). The Catalogue is also included in TeX Live in
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./texmf/doc/html/catalogue/, but the online version will have updates.
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Of course the legal statements within the packages themselves are the
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final authority.
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In some cases, TeX Live is distributed with a snapshot of the CTAN
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archive, which is entirely independent of and separable from TeX Live
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itself. (The "live" DVD in the TeX Collection is one example of this.)
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Please be aware that the CTAN snapshot contains many files which are
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*not* freely redistributable; see LICENSE.CTAN for more information.
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GUIDELINES FOR REDISTRIBUTION:
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In general, you may redistribute TeX Live, with or without modification,
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for profit or not, according to the usual free software tenets. Here
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are some general guidelines for doing this:
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- If you make any changes to the TeX Live distribution or any
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package it contains, besides complying with any licensing requirements,
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you must prominently mention such changes in your modified distribution
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so that users do not take your work for ours, and know to contact you,
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not us, in case of questions or problems. A new top-level
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README.<yourwork> file is a good place to describe the general situation.
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- Especially (but not necessarily) if changes or additions are made, we
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recommend a clearly different title, such as "<your work> DVD", based on
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TeX Live YYYY (with updates)", where YYYY is the year of TeX Live you
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are publishing. This credits both our work and yours.
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- You absolutely may *not* place your own copyright on the entire
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distribution, since it is not your work (as stated above, TeX Live is
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not created by any single person or entity). Statements such as "all
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rights reserved" and "may not be reproduced" are especially
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reprehensible, since they are antithetical to the free software
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principles under which TeX Live is produced.
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- You may use any cover or media label designs that you wish. Such
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packaging and marketing details are not covered by any TeX Live license.
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- Finally, we make the following requests (not legal requirements):
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a) Acknowledging that TeX Live is developed as a joint effort by all TeX
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user groups, and encouraging the user/reader to join their user group
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of choice. The web page http://www.tug.org/usergroups.html may be
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referenced as a list of TeX user groups.
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b) Referencing the TeX Live home page: http://www.tug.org/tex-live/.
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Such information may be placed on the label of your media, your cover,
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and/or in accompanying text (for instance, in the acknowledgements
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section of a book).
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Finally, although it is certainly not a requirement, we'd like to invite
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any redistributors to make a donation to the project, whether cash or
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in-kind, for example via https://www.tug.org/donate/dev.html. Thanks.
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If you have any questions or comments, *please* contact us. In general,
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we appreciate being given the chance to review any TeX Live-related
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material in advance of publication, simply to avoid mistakes. It is
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much better to correct text on a CD label or in a book before thousands
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of copies are made!
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We are also happy to keep anyone planning a publication informed as to
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our deadlines and progress. Just let us know. However, be aware that
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TeX Live is produced entirely by volunteers, and no dates can be
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guaranteed.
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LICENSING FOR NEW PACKAGES:
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Finally, we are often asked what license to use for new work. To be
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considered for inclusion on TeX Live, a package must use a free software
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license, such as the LaTeX Project Public License, the GNU General
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Public License, the X Window System license, the modified BSD license,
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etc. Furthermore, all sources must be available (including for
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documentation files). Please see the url's below for more discussion of this.
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Thanks for your interest in TeX.
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- Karl Berry, editor, for the TeX Live team
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------------------------------------------------------------
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[*] Conflicts between FSF and Debian.
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The most notable instance of legal conflict between the FSF definition
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of "free software" and the Debian Free Software Guidelines is in regard
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to the GNU Free Documentation License when "invariant sections" (e.g.,
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Front-Cover Texts, Back-Cover Texts, or Invariant Sections) are
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included. (FSF considers it free, of course, and Debian doesn't.)
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The most common instance of such a license is in documentation for
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official GNU packages -- such as GNU Texinfo, which is included in TeX
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Live. There may be other GFDL'd files with invariant sections as well;
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we have not exhaustively checked.
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For TeX Live, we decided to follow the FSF, rather than Debian. So such
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documentation *is* included in the original TeX Live distribution. (In
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repackagings of TL according to Debian rules, it is removed.) We surely
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wish these two major organizations in the free software world could
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cooperate on a documentation license acceptable to both.
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If other specific conflicts are brought to our attention, we will note
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them here.
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------------------------------------------------------------
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TeX Live mailing list: texlive@tug.org
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TeX Live home page: http://www.tug.org/tex-live/
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The FSF's free software definition: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
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Debian Free Software Guidelines: http://www.debian.org/intro/free
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FSF commentary on existing licenses:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
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LPPL: http://latex-project.org/lppl.html or texmf/doc/latex/base/lppl.txt
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LPPL rationale: texmf/doc/latex/base/modguide.pdf
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