Subject: Re: LaTeX2e license
From: [email-masked] (Olaf Kirch)
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 15:15:04 +0200 (MET DST)

Hello Dan and all others,

Daniel Quinlan ([email-masked]) wrote:
: 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.

Hm, I haven't looked at the license before, but there have always been
some restrictions I disliked (e.g. the `don't modify me' disclaimer at
the top of each file, but see below).

One of my reasons for using LaTeX2e was mainly that Slackware was very
quick to junk the old latex 2.09 and switch to some beta version of latex2e
(nameless horrors...). Of course it did have some problems, the worst of
it being the 2.09 compatibility mode. As a result, Slackware users were
basically unable to format the early NAG versions.

I found that when using the new-style macros most of the problems vanished
except for one or two. Those were real bugs, and I documented them in the
README (and sent error reports that seem to have gone to email heaven).
My point is that if there's an obvious bug and I'm not allowed to fix it,
I tell the end user to fix it himself/herself.

Another reason to use latex2e was some things I had problems with on 2.09
simply worked in 2e (font changes in section headings, for instance).

I am aware that not everyone uses latex2e, so if you look at the source
of the NAG, there are two slightly convoluted files that try to support
several latex versions (2.09 and earlier, the beta versions of 2e shipped
with Slackware at some point, and 2e proper). There's no magic involved,
because I don't use anything fancy. It's just a big tangle of \if's and
some compatibility macros.  That allows you to format the NAG even if you
don't have latex2e. If other LDP authors wish to add similar support to
their books, just pick it up and modify as you like.

Concerning the distribution terms for latex2e, I do have some sympathy
for these people. They run one of the biggest freeware projects (maybe even
_the_ biggest), so the only way not to get drowned in complaints about
broken configurations may be to be strict on copying and modification
issues.

On the other hand, I don't think they are against you customizing your
setup; they just don't want distributors to meddle with their files.
That's what style files are for, and if you dislike some particular
feature of latex2e, you can even go around overriding internal macros
and so on. With style files, it's obvious to anyone who's to blame for
what without having to look into the tex code itself (few people do that,
anyway).

Olaf
-- 
Olaf Kirch         |  --- o --- Nous sommes du soleil we love when we play
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