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Frank Mittelbach <[log in to unmask]>
Sun, 30 Jun 2002 20:51:00 +0200
text/plain (234 lines)
Donald wrote:

 > I've tried to come up with a good general-purpose way to express the
 > "proof of disappearance", and have not come up with anything robust.

so what, give up?

 > If it were just for myself, I could say "not posting to the usenet
 > newsgroup comp.text.tex for six months", but that's not good for most
 > people.  The condition of "reachable by email" makes the most sense,
 > if there is an email address in the package source, but email addresses
 > change, and perhaps the return address doesn't get updated.

indeed. and even more, what about the sitation like with the TeX program
itself? It is not distributed under LPPL but essentially in the same spirit:
don't change me unless you are either Don Knuth or change the name.

now in this case there is something else: TeX is going to freeze upon Don's
death: according to his wish the version number will be updated to \pi and the
program never changed afterwards (the one with the name TeX).


okay, i have tried this afternoon to come up with something myself and wrote a
draft license that (perhaps) covers the maintenance problems. I'm  not sure it
is good, but i would invite commments.

if there is no satisfactory conclusion reachable I will most likely stick to
the originally suggested changes and call the LPPL1.3, but perhaps my new
draft can be shaped into something useable.

A diff to the offical version 1.2 is appended below (to see the additions and
modifications seems easier this way) If you want to see the full license text
(to check if "The Program" is suitably defined, etc) combine it via "patch"
with the official version, which is part of every LATeX distribution and can,
of course, also be found at

 http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt

awaiting your comments

frank


*** /usr/TeX/texmf/doc/latex/base/lppl.txt      Mon Apr  2 17:16:49 2001
--- lppl-draft.txt      Sun Jun 30 20:49:17 2002
***************
*** 2,10 ****
  The LaTeX Project Public License
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

! LPPL Version 1.2  1999-09-03

! Copyright 1999 LaTeX3 Project
      Everyone is allowed to distribute verbatim copies of this
      license document, but modification of it is not allowed.

--- 2,10 ----
  The LaTeX Project Public License
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

! LPPL Version 1.3-draft  2002-06-30

! Copyright 1999,2002 LaTeX3 Project
      Everyone is allowed to distribute verbatim copies of this
      license document, but modification of it is not allowed.

***************
*** 26,31 ****
--- 26,35 ----
  In this license document, `The Program' refers to any program
  distributed under this license.

+ In this license document, the `Current Maintainer' refers to the person or
+ persons who are allowed to maintain The Program. Initially this is
+ the Copyright Holder.
+
  This license gives conditions under which The Program may be distributed
  and conditions under which modified versions of The Program may be
  distributed.  Individual files of The Program may bear supplementary
***************
*** 36,42 ****
  to distribute a complete, unmodified copy of The Program therefore
  needs to check the conditions only in this license and nowhere else.

! Activities other than distribution and/or modification of The Program
  are not covered by this license; they are outside its scope.  In
  particular, the act of running The Program is not restricted.

--- 40,46 ----
  to distribute a complete, unmodified copy of The Program therefore
  needs to check the conditions only in this license and nowhere else.

! Activities other than distribution and/or modification (including maintenance) of The Program
  are not covered by this license; they are outside its scope.  In
  particular, the act of running The Program is not restricted.

***************
*** 55,64 ****
  You may distribute a complete, unmodified copy of The Program.
  Distribution of only part of The Program is not allowed.

! You may not modify in any way a file of The Program that bears a legal
! notice forbidding modification of that file.

! You may distribute a modified file of The Program if, and only if, the
  following eight conditions are met:

    1. You must meet any additional conditions borne by the file on the
--- 59,69 ----
  You may distribute a complete, unmodified copy of The Program.
  Distribution of only part of The Program is not allowed.

! If you are the Current Maintainer of The Program you may distribute new
! versions of The Program.

! If you are not the Current Maintainer of The Program you are only allowed to
! distribute a modified file of The Program if, and only if, the
  following eight conditions are met:

    1. You must meet any additional conditions borne by the file on the
***************
*** 122,127 ****
--- 127,138 ----
  conventions of the target file systems) is considered to be a
  modification of the file.

+ If The Program is distributed in a packed form with a number of files
+ to be generated by some unpacking method from the distributed files,
+ then these derived files are logically (even if not physically
+ present) part of The Program and are covered by this license
+ independently of the method of their generation.
+
  The distribution conditions in this license do not have to be
  applied to files that have been modified in accordance with the
  above conditions.  Note, however, that Condition 7. does apply to
***************
*** 219,224 ****
--- 230,285 ----
  party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.


+ MAINTENANCE OF THE PROGRAM
+ ==========================
+
+ The Program has the status `maintained' if the Current Maintainer has
+ made provisions to receive bug reports for The Program (for example,
+ by supplying a valid email address). It is not required for the
+ Current Maintainer to acknowledge or act upon bug reports.
+
+ The Program changes from status `maintained' to `unmaintained' if the
+ Current Maintainer of the program cannot be reached through the
+ provided means of communication for a period of six months.
+
+ The Program has the status `frozen' if the Copyright Holder
+ explicitly states that The Program can only be maintained by the
+ Copyright Holder.
+
+ If The Program is unmaintained you can become the Current Maintainer
+ of The Program through the following steps:
+
+   1. Make a reasonable attempt to trace the Current Maintainer (and
+      Copyright Holder, if the two differ) through the means of
+      Internet Search, etc.
+
+   2a. If this search was successful inquire if The Program is still
+      maintained and if so ask the Current Maintainer to update the
+      communication data.
+
+   2b. Otherwise announce your intention to take over maintenance
+      within the pertinent community (if The Program is a LaTeX
+      program, this could be done, for example, by posting to
+      comp.text.tex)
+
+   3a. If the Current Maintainer was reachable and agreed to pass
+       maintenance of The Program to you, then this takes effect
+       immediately upon announcement.
+
+   3b. Otherwise if the Current Maintainer was unreachable and if after
+      two months your intention was neither challenged by the Current
+      Maintainer nor by other people, you may arrange for a change of
+      The Program to reflect you as the (new) Current Maintainer.
+
+   4. If the previously unreachable Current Maintainer returns within
+      six months he has to be reinitiated as the Current Maintainer
+      upon request.
+
+ A change in the Current Maintainer does not alter the fact that The
+ Program is distributed under the LPPL license.
+
+
+
  WHETHER AND HOW TO DISTRIBUTE PROGRAMS UNDER THIS LICENSE
  =========================================================

***************
*** 262,279 ****
    %% Copyright 2001 M. Y. Name
    %
    % This program may be distributed and/or modified under the
!   % conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.2
    % of this license or (at your option) any later version.
    % The latest version of this license is in
    %   http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
!   % and version 1.2 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
!   % version 1999/12/01 or later.
    %
    % This program consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins

  Given such a notice and statement in a file, the conditions given in
  this license document would apply, with `The Program' referring to the
! two files `pig.dtx' and `pig.ins', and `The Copyright Holder' referring
  to the person `M. Y. Name'.


--- 323,342 ----
    %% Copyright 2001 M. Y. Name
    %
    % This program may be distributed and/or modified under the
!   % conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
    % of this license or (at your option) any later version.
    % The latest version of this license is in
    %   http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
!   % and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
!   % version 2002/06/01 or later.
    %
    % This program consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins
+   % and the derived file pig.sty.

  Given such a notice and statement in a file, the conditions given in
  this license document would apply, with `The Program' referring to the
! two files `pig.dtx', `pig.ins', and `pig.sty' (generateable from
! `pig.dtx' using `pig.ins'), and `The Copyright Holder' referring
  to the person `M. Y. Name'.

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