License

[Joseph Mornin]

I'm in favor of releasing LaTeX templates, guides, and other output
under some kind of no-restrictions license in order to (1) maximize
freedom and (2) avoid thorny problems of authorship/ownership.

Some good options are MIT
(https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) and CC0
(https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). CC0 might be
better because this isn't really a software project.

Any thoughts?

[Jonathan Browalski]

I think CC0 makes sense - might as well avoid any confusion from the term "software" in the MIT license.

[Nate Whetsell]

It may be better to distribute LaTeX packages and document classes under the latest version of the LaTeX project public license (LPPL). This seems to be the preferred license of LaTeX packages and document classes included with TeX distributions like MacTeX and MiKTeX, and on CTAN.

[Joseph Mornin]

The FSF says that the LPPL has some confusing and possibly non-free
parts: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#LPPL-1.2

This jumps out, for instance: "Distribution of only part of The Program
is not allowed." http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:LPPLv1.2

I'm not sure there's any reason to impose those restrictions, though I
can see some value in using a license that's already popular in the TeX
community.

On 7/12/13 12:16 PM, Nate Whetsell wrote:
> It may be better to distribute LaTeX packages and document classes under
> the latest version of the LaTeX project public license (LPPL)

> <http://latex-project.org/lppl/>. This seems to be the preferred license

> of LaTeX packages and document classes included with TeX distributions

> like MacTeX <http://tug.org/mactex/> and MiKTeX <http://miktex.org>, and
> on CTAN <http://www.ctan.org>.

>
> On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 6:31:27 PM UTC-4, Joseph Mornin wrote:
>
> I'm in favor of releasing LaTeX templates, guides, and other output
> under some kind of no-restrictions license in order to (1) maximize
> freedom and (2) avoid thorny problems of authorship/ownership.
>
> Some good options are MIT
> (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

> <https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>) and CC0
> (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
> <https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>). CC0 might be

> better because this isn't really a software project.
>
> Any thoughts?
>

> --
> LaTeX for Lawyers: http://www.latexforlawyers.org/
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "LaTeX for Lawyers" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to latex-for-lawy...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to latex-fo...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>

[Nate Whetsell]

Version 1.3c of the LPPL doesn’t contain precisely that language, but it does say, “You may distribute a complete, unmodified copy of the Work as you received it. Distribution of only part of the Work is considered modification of the Work, and no right to distribute such a Derived Work may be assumed under the terms of this clause.” That being said—and take this with a grain of salt, because I’m not a lawyer—it appears that the FSF considers both 1.2 and 1.3a to be “a free software license”, but incompatible with the GPL.

For what it’s worth, I’ve encountered only a handful of LaTeX classes/packages that are not LPPL 1.3c–licensed; beamer (GPL) comes immediately to mind. TikZ/PGF, fontspec, and the LaTeX3 kernel (l3kernel) are all LPPL-licensed, as are, I believe, the base classes (like article).

[Joseph Mornin]

Cool, thanks for the details. Do you think there are reasons to use LPPL
instead of something less restrictive (CC0, MIT), other than that LPPL
is popular among TeX users?

Another issue is that the non�public domain licenses need a rights
holder. I'm hoping that (1) most of what we write will be collaborative
and (2) that this will stay a volunteer project (though input is welcome
on those fronts, too). Rather than spend time figuring out ownership, it
would be simplest to send everything into the public domain, right?

On 7/12/13 5:58 PM, Nate Whetsell wrote:
> Version 1.3c of the LPPL <http://latex-project.org/lppl/lppl-1-3c.html>
> doesn�t contain precisely that language, but it does say, �You may

> distribute a complete, unmodified copy of the Work as you received it.
> Distribution of only part of the Work is considered modification of the
> Work, and no right to distribute such a Derived Work may be assumed

> under the terms of this clause.� That being said�and take this with a
> grain of salt, because I�m not a lawyer�it appears that the FSF
> considers both 1.2
> <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#LPPL-1.2> and 1.3a
> <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#LPPL-1.3a> to be �a free
> software license�, but incompatible with the GPL.
>
> For what it�s worth, I�ve encountered only a handful of LaTeX
> classes/packages that are not LPPL 1.3c�licensed; beamer
> <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/beamer> (GPL) comes immediately to mind.
> TikZ/PGF <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/pgf>, fontspec
> <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/fontspec>, and the LaTeX3 kernel (l3kernel
> <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/l3kernel>) are all LPPL-licensed, as are, I
> believe, the base classes (like article <http://ctan.org/pkg/article>).

>
> On Friday, July 12, 2013 8:05:13 PM UTC-4, Joseph Mornin wrote:
>
> The FSF says that the LPPL has some confusing and possibly non-free
> parts: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#LPPL-1.2
> <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#LPPL-1.2>
>
> This jumps out, for instance: "Distribution of only part of The Program
> is not allowed." http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:LPPLv1.2
> <http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:LPPLv1.2>
>
> I'm not sure there's any reason to impose those restrictions, though I
> can see some value in using a license that's already popular in the TeX
> community.
>
> On 7/12/13 12:16 PM, Nate Whetsell wrote:
> > It may be better to distribute LaTeX packages and document classes
> under
> > the latest version of the LaTeX project public license (LPPL)

> > <http://latex-project.org/lppl/ <http://latex-project.org/lppl/>>.

> > an email to latex-for-lawy...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>.

> > To post to this group, send email to latex-fo...@googlegroups.com

> <javascript:>.

> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out

> <https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out>.

[Nate Whetsell]

My (limited) understanding of the restrictions in the LPPL is that they’re intended to make sure that a LaTeX document written today can be compiled on a TeX system 10 years from now, but it might be worth posing a question about LPPL vs. MIT vs. Other Licenses at http://tex.stackexchange.com, where hopefully someone far more knowledgable than I can give a detailed answer.

I truly don’t know the simplest way to deal with rights issues (although it appears that the MIT License requires a copyright holder—but, again, I’m not a lawyer). Another possibility may be to have some sort of entity, perhaps called “LaTeX for Lawyers”, hold the copyright, similar to how “The LaTeX3 Team” is the copyright holder of the LaTeX3 base packages.

[Joseph Mornin]

I found a few StackExchange questions on licensing templates
(http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/101439/what-license-for-releasing-latex-templates,
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/120290/is-the-lppl-license-suitable-also-for-templates-or-use-lgpl),
although I haven't found a conclusive answer.

It seems the point of using the different licenses is to control how the
work is used--like to require redistribution on similar terms, to
prevent commercial use, or to require attribution.

Do we need to assert any kind of control?

On 7/13/13 3:27 PM, Nate Whetsell wrote:
> My (limited) understanding of the restrictions in the LPPL is that

> they�re intended to make sure that a LaTeX document written today can be

> compiled on a TeX system 10 years from now, but it might be worth posing

> a question about LPPL /vs./ MIT /vs./ Other Licenses

> at http://tex.stackexchange.com, where hopefully someone far more
> knowledgable than I can give a detailed answer.
>

> I truly don�t know the simplest way to deal with rights issues (although
> it appears that the MIT License <http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT>
> requires a copyright holder�but, again, I�m not a lawyer). Another
> possibility may be to have some sort of entity, perhaps called �LaTeX
> for Lawyers�, hold the copyright, similar to how �The LaTeX3 Team� is

> > <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/beamer <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/beamer>>

> <http://latex-project.org/lppl/> <http://latex-project.org/lppl/