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References: <20100126100454.GA3626@oberdiek.my-fqdn.de>
Message-ID:  <19302.889.156766.949615@morse.mittelbach-online.de>
Date:         Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:26:01 +0100
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
From: Frank Mittelbach <frank.mittelbach@LATEX-PROJECT.ORG>
Subject: Re: LPPL revisions
To: LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de
In-Reply-To:  <20100126100454.GA3626@oberdiek.my-fqdn.de>
Precedence: list
Status: R

Heiko Oberdiek writes:
 > Hello,
 > 
 > if someone put his work under LPPL and also specifies the revision,
 > e.g.:
 > 
 >   %% pig.dtx
 >   %% Copyright 2005 M. Y. Name
 >   %
 >   % This work may be distributed and/or modified under the
 >   % conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3b
 >   % 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 1.3b or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
 >   % version 2006/01/07 or later.
 >   %
 >   % This work has the LPPL maintenance status `maintained'.
 >   % 
 >   % The Current Maintainer of this work is M. Y. Name.
 >   %
 >   % This work consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins
 >   % and the derived file pig.sty.
 > 
 > Then this is correct for 2007, but after 1.3c has been introduced,
 > lppl.txt is now 1.3c, not 1.3b. And the LaTeX distributions
 > don't include 1.3a and 1.3b anymore. It's available as
 >   http://www.latex-project/lppl/lppl-1-3b.txt (or html, ...),
 > but these links are not part of http://www.latex-project.org/lppl/.
 > 
 > Would it be possible to put older revisions to the LaTeX distribution

I'm against putting multiple licenses into the distribution of LaTeX.
LaTeX is distributed under only one licenses and not under multiple ones and
the current version of files do not offer (for good reasons) to downgrade to
an earlier version of the license, it only offers to use a later version if
one becomes available.

By putting the older versions into the distribution that would only provide
confusion in that respect.

Note, that if the LaTeX distribution only contains LPPL in 1.3c then
the statement in pig.dtx remains correct that "1.3b *or* a later version is
part of all LaTeX distributions".

Instead if at all I would suggest to add a file lppl-older.txt that refers
back to www.latex-project.org but explicitly explains that those older
licenses are not relevant for the files in the current LaTeX distribution but
are only relevant for files that explicitly are licensed under the older LPPL.

 > and add these links to http://www.latex-project.org/lppl/?
 > Otherwise there are many work that refers to a license that is not
 > officially available.

concerning the major revisions of the license, all of them are on the project
web site. The issue with 1.3a and b is that those two contain inconsistencies
(small but relevant) and 1.3c is nothing more than a clarification of the
intend written up in 1.3a and as agreed with the DEBIAN legal people.

but I agree with you that those should be listed on the project site to provide
all versions that where once in use. 

regards
frank