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author | Karl Berry <karl@freefriends.org> | 2009-05-22 23:51:44 +0000 |
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committer | Karl Berry <karl@freefriends.org> | 2009-05-22 23:51:44 +0000 |
commit | 566f5207d7e3cafb0633d31277067336ccd9cca7 (patch) | |
tree | 7af53e7ac405185168bc1dc38c4e820f442b78d0 /Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html | |
parent | b0beea26ffffd915bb6d9b82f2d65a0a05b7e23b (diff) |
move generic english documents out of texmf-doc
git-svn-id: svn://tug.org/texlive/trunk@13396 c570f23f-e606-0410-a88d-b1316a301751
Diffstat (limited to 'Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html')
-rw-r--r-- | Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html | 66 |
1 files changed, 66 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..4c62ea60570 --- /dev/null +++ b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-nonfree.html @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ +<head> +<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label nonfree</title> +</head><body> +<h3>What’s the CTAN <code>nonfree</code> tree?</h3> +<p/>When CTAN was founded, in the 1990s, it was unusual to publish +the terms under which a TeX-related package was distributed (or, at +any rate, to publish those terms formally). +<p/>With the advent of the TeX <em>distributions</em>, however, people +started to realise the need for such information, to protect those who +create, distribute or sell the discs that hold the packages, etc. +With the licence information available, the distributors can decide +which packages may be distributed. +<p/>The CTAN team decided that it would be useful for users (and +distributors, not to say package authors) to separate packages that +were candidates for distribution, and those that were in some sense +“not free”. Thus was the <code>nonfree</code> tree born. +<p/>From the start, the <code>nonfree</code> tree was controversial: the terms +under which a package would be placed on the tree were hotly +contested, and the CTAN team were only able slowly to populate +the tree. It is now obvious to the team that the project would never +be completed. +<p/>The CTAN catalogue now records the nature of the licences of a +good proportion of the packages it describes (though there remain +several for which the licence is unknown, which is as good, for the +distributors, as a licence forbidding distribution). Since the +catalogue’s coverage of CTAN is good (and slowly improving), +the general rule for distributors has become +<blockquote> +“if the package is listed in the catalogue, check there to see +whether you should distribute; if the package is not listed in the +catalogue, don’t think of distributing it”. +</blockquote><p> +<p/>(The catalogue only has a modest +<a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/licenses.html">list of licences</a>, but it covers the set used +by packages on CTAN, with a wild-card “<code>other-free</code>” +which covers packages that the CTAN administrators believe to +be free even though the authors haven’t used a standard licence.) +<p/>In the light of the above, the <code>nonfree</code> tree is being +dismantled, and its contents moved to the main CTAN tree. So +the answer to the question is, now, “the nonfree tree is a part of +CTAN, and is now being merged with the main tree”. +<p/><p/> + + + + + + + + + + + +<p/> + + + + +<p/> + + + + + +<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=nonfree">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=nonfree</a> +</body> |