Subject: LaTeX2e license
From: [email-masked] (Daniel Quinlan)
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 5 May 95 11:33 PDT

Hello everyone.

I am very concerned about a few LDP authors' use of LaTeX2e for their
books.  I have taken some time to examine the LaTeX2e license so that
Yggdrasil can include LaTeX2e in our Linux release and use it to
produce the Linux Bible.  The point is that LaTeX2e has some serious
restrictions that we not present in previous versions of LaTeX.

The "DISTRIBUTION" section is the troubling one.  It effectively
prevents commercial selling of LaTeX2e, reasonable modification of the
source code, and more.  I quote:

  You are NOT ALLOWED to take money for the distribution or use of
  these files except for a nominal charge for copying, etc.

The definition of "nominal charge" is apparently up to the LaTeX2e
authors.

You may want to examine http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ltxbugs2html
and enter "license" as the search keyword with the default settings.
It's obvious from the response that LaTeX2e is *not* free.

I have included the complete license below.

 Dan

------- start of cut text --------------
        LaTeX2e Copyright, Warranty and Distribution Restrictions

                           1 June 1994

COPYRIGHT

This distribution is Copyright 1994 the LaTeX3 project and the
individual authors:

   Leslie Lamport
   Johannes Braams
   David Carlisle
   Alan Jeffrey
   Frank Mittelbach
   Chris Rowley
   Rainer Schoepf

All rights reserved.

The individual packages may bear additional copyright notices which
supersede this general copyright notice.

WARRANTY

There is no warranty for LaTeX2e, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.  Except when otherwise stated in writing, the LaTeX3
project provides the program `as is' without warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the
implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular
purpose.  The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the
program is with you.  Should the program prove defective, you assume
the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction.

In no event unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing
will the LaTeX3 project, or any of the individual authors named above,
be liable to you for damages, including any general, special,
incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or
inability to use the program (including but not limited to loss of
data or data being rendered inaccurate or losses sustained by you or
third parties or a failure of the program to operate with any other
programs), even if such holder or other party has been advised of the
possibility of such damages.

DISTRIBUTION

You are NOT ALLOWED to take money for the distribution or use of
these files except for a nominal charge for copying, etc.

Redistribution of unchanged files is allowed provided that all files
listed in the manifest file are distributed including this copyright
file.

If you receive only some of these files from someone, complain!

However, if these files are distributed by established suppliers as
part of a complete TeX distribution, and the structure of the
distribution would make it difficult to distribute the whole set of
files, *those parties* are allowed to distribute only some of the
files provided that it is made clear that the user will get a
complete distribution-set upon request to that supplier (not us).

Note that this permission is not granted to the end user.

The generation of changed versions of the files included in the
LaTeX2e system is allowed under the following restrictions:

 * It is allowed only if the copyright notice in the file does not
   forbid it.

 * You rename the file before you make any changes to it.

 * You acknowledge the origin of the original version in the file and
   keep the information that it (or a changed version) has to be
   distributed under the restrictions mentioned in this file.

 * You change the ERROR REPORT address so that we do not get error
   reports for files *not* maintained by us.

 * You provide the user with information how to obtain the original
   package or, even better, distribute it with your files.

 * You make sure that the changed versions contain a notice that
   prohibits others from charging money for the distribution or use of
   your files, i.e. they have to be distributed under the restrictions
   mentioned in this file.

 * You inform us that you created a changed version of the files.
   This is only necessary if you want to distribute it to others.

These restrictions do *not* apply to the LaTeX configuration files
ending with .cfg.

--- Copyright 1994 the LaTeX3 project.  All rights reserved ---
------- end ----------------------------

-- 
Daniel Quinlan            Member of the League for Programming Freedom
[email-masked]