Subject: Re: LaTeX2e license
From: Rickard Faith <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 22:33:32 -0400

On Fri  5 May 1995 11:33 PDT,
   Daniel Quinlan <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I am very concerned about a few LDP authors' use of LaTeX2e for their
> books.

Are you concerned because authors are putting LaTeX2e sources in their
books, or because people who buy commercial distributions might not have
LaTeX2e sources on their systems?

> 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.

Has anyone contacted the LaTeX3 folks?  Perhaps they can clarify what they
mean by taking money for the distribution, and perhaps they are willing to
write this clarification into their next release?  E.g., perhaps they think
that bundling LaTeX2e with a (TeX) distribution is acceptable, and want
only to prohibit selling LaTeX2e as an add-on package (e.g., the way things
like AMSTeX and PiCTeX are currently sold in the ads in TUGboat).

As for the prohibitions on modifying LaTeX2e, I don't see why LaTeX2e needs
to be modified.  You can still load up the Sauter fonts or use a different
hyphenation table, since these are add-ons, not modifications.  What sort
of modifications do you want to do?