X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["551" "Fri" "13" "November" "1998" "23:03:36" "GMT" "David Carlisle" "davidc@NAG.CO.UK" nil "13" "Re: What is \"base\" LaTeX" "^Date:" nil nil "11" nil "What is \"base\" LaTeX" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.1]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA00940; Sat, 14 Nov 1998 00:05:04 +0100 (MET) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.2) by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <12.E4096C93@listserv.gmd.de>; Sat, 14 Nov 1998 0:05:02 +0100 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 408363 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Sat, 14 Nov 1998 00:00:22 +0100 Received: from nag.co.uk (andover.nag.co.uk [192.156.217.113]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA00194 for ; Fri, 13 Nov 1998 23:59:05 +0100 (MET) Received: (from davidc@localhost) by nag.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.7) id XAA01382; Fri, 13 Nov 1998 23:03:36 GMT References: <199811131002.KAA27264@nag.co.uk> Message-ID: <199811132303.XAA01382@nag.co.uk> Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: (message from Martin Schroeder on Fri, 13 Nov 1998 21:53:56 +0100) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 23:03:36 GMT From: David Carlisle Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: What is "base" LaTeX Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 2885 > Or you require the packages to have the GPL. That way changes can be > made when needed by those who need them. have a look at latex/1600 (a number I still have burned in to my brain all these years later:-) GPL is a good model for an implementation, but a very poor model for something that is defining a user level language (as is a package, usually) a GPL'ed longtable.sty would allow anyone to issue an `improved' that is to say, incompatible, longtable.sty at any time, with the same name. So no documents would be portable, anywhere. David