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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html>

<head>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>The TeX Catalogue License Definitions</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>The TeX Catalogue License Definitions</h1>

<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>Here we list the licenses used by TeX-related software as
recorded in <a href="http://mirror.ctan.org/help/Catalogue">The
TeX Catalogue</a> (created by
<a href="http://www.togaware.com/Graham.Williams">Graham Williams</a>
and maintained by the <a href='http://www.ctan.org'>CTAN team</a>).
General information about categories of licenses is available from
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html">the GNU project</a>.
<p>
The license conditions are <B>not</B> designed to restrict what may
be submitted to CTAN.  Rather, the license information should make
life easier for redistributors of TeX and related software: in
general, software under one of the non-free license terms listed below
should not be included in a distribution.  Most material on the
archive may be <em>used</em> without further ado; the only exceptions
are <a href="licenses.nocommercial.html">nocommercial</a> software,
(whose use in a commercial environment is forbidden), and some (but not
all) <a href="licenses.shareware.html">shareware</a>.
<p>
The CTAN team tries to ensure that the license information in the
Catalogue is accurate, and maintains it with input from authors and
others, but the sheer size of the Catalogue makes it difficult to
maintain a watching brief on all licenses.  Thus, while the team believes
that the data presented are mostly correct, we advise careful checking
if license information is to be used in &lsquo;legally delicate&rsquo;
situations.

<h2>The licenses</h2>
<p>
<b>Free software</b> satisfies the criteria contained in the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free
Software Guidelines</a> which provides the basis of the <a
href="http://opensource.org/osd.html">Open Source Free Software
Guidelines</A>.  This software may be freely used, modified (hence
source must be available), and distributed (e.g. on distributions like
TeXLive and MikTeX).  It is generally copyrighted to legally
protect it.  Users are usually given an explicit license to copy,
distribute, and/or modify the software. Authors of free software may
invite users to make monetary donations if they wish, but can not
oblige them to do so, or else the software becomes nonfree.  Free
software may rely on nonfree software for extra functionality, but
provides useful functionality without that nonfree software. Further
information on free software is available from
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">GNU</a>.

<p>While one category would be sufficient (just &lsquo;free&rsquo;) we
identify licenses, important for (La)TeX users, that satisfy common
notions of free software:
<p>
<table width="80%">
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.apache2.html">apache2</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Apache License v2.0
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.artistic2.html">artistic2</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Perl Artistic License (version 2)
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.bsd.html">bsd</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    BSD Style License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.fdl.html">fdl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    GNU Free Documentation License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.gfl.html">gfl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    GUST Font License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.gfsl.html">gfsl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    GUST Font Source License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.gpl.html">gpl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    GNU General Public License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.lgpl.html">lgpl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    GNU Library General Public License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.lppl.html">lppl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    LaTeX Project Public License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.ofl.html">ofl</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Open Font License
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.pd.html">pd</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Public Domain
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.other-free.html">other-free</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">    
    Category for packages, whose license terms seem (to the CTAN team)
    to conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines
  </tr>
</table>

<p><b>Nonfree software</b> is released subject to restrictions that in
some way prohibit its free distribution.  Because this
software does <b>not</b> satisfy the <a
href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free
Software Guidelines</a>, it will not be available for distribution by
free TeX distributions such as TeX-live, MiKTeX and friends.
<p>
<table width="80%">
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.noinfo.html">noinfo</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    No information about licensing terms can be found
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.nocommercial.html">nocommercial</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Free private use but commercial use not permitted
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.nosell.html">nosell</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Free use but distribution for profit by arrangement only
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.nosource.html">nosource</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Freely distributable but source code not distributed
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.shareware.html">shareware</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Payment is requested if software is used
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.artistic.html">artistic</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    Perl Artistic License (original version, now understood not to
    offer unconditional freedom)
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.other-nonfree.html">other-nonfree</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">    
    Category for packages whose license terms are other than any of
    the above, but seem (to the CTAN team) not to conform to Debian
    Free Software guidelines.
  </tr>
</table>

<p><b>Sets of items</b>: finally, the catalogue recognises two other
&lsquo;license&rsquo; tags, whose purpose is to identify the status of
&lsquo;composite&rsquo; objects on the the archive.

<p>
<table width="80%">
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.collection.html">collection</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    A collection of similar packages
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="width: 10%">
    <td style="width: 20%">
    <a href="licenses.digest.html">digest</a>
    <td style="width: 70%">
    A digest of contributions to a mailing list or publication
  </tr>
</table>

<p>
<b>Disclaimer:</b> The CTAN team tries hard to maintain the catalogue
information, but the task is a large one &mdash; extremely challenging
for a small volunteer team; errors (probably) and omissions
(certainly) still exist.  Any contribution, or correction, to the
catalogue is extremely welcome &mdash; please mail the
<a href="mailto:ctan<at>dante<dot>de">CTAN team</a> if you spot a problem,
or can describe a package the catalogue doesn't currently mention.

<hr>
<address></address>
<!-- hhmts start --><p>Last modified: 2009-01-23 Robin Fairbairns,
University of Cambridge</p> <!-- hhmts end -->
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