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$Id: //depot/Master/LICENSE.TL#12 $  $Date: 2005/09/17 $  $Author: karl $

COPYING CONDITIONS FOR TeX Live:

To the best of our knowledge, all software in this distribution is
freely redistributable (libre, that is, not necessarily gratis), within
the Free Software Foundation's definition and Debian Free Software
Guidelines.  If you find any non-free files included, please contact us
(references given below).

That said, TeX Live has neither a single copyright holder nor a single
license covering its entire contents, since it is a collection of many
disparate packages.  Therefore, you may copy, modify, and/or
redistribute software from TeX Live only if you comply with the
requirements placed thereon by the owners of the respective packages.

To most easily learn these requirements, we suggest checking the TeX
Catalogue at: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/ (or any
CTAN mirror).  The Catalogue is also included in TeX Live in
./texmf/doc/html/catalogue/, but the online version will have updates.
Of course the legal statements within the packages themselves are the
final authority.

In some cases, TeX Live is distributed with a snapshot of the CTAN
archive, which is entirely independent of and separable from TeX Live
itself.  (The "live" DVD in the TeX Collection is one example of this.)
Please be aware that the CTAN snapshot contains many files which are
*not* freely redistributable; see LICENSE.CTAN for more information.


GUIDELINES FOR REDISTRIBUTION:

In general, you may redistribute TeX Live, with or without modification,
for profit or not, according to the usual free software tenets.  Here
are some general guidelines for doing this:

- If you make any changes to the TeX Live distribution or any
package it contains, besides complying with any licensing requirements,
you must prominently mention such changes in your modified distribution
so that users do not take your work for ours, and know to contact you,
not us, in case of questions or problems.  A new top-level
README.<yourwork> file is a good place to describe the general situation.

- Especially (but not necessarily) if changes or additions are made, we
recommend a clearly different title, such as "<your work> demo CD",
based on TeX Live YYYY demo (with updates)", where YYYY is the year of
TeX Live you are publishing.  This credits both our work and yours.

- You absolutely may *not* place your own copyright on the entire
distribution, since it is not your work (as stated above, TeX Live is
not created by any single person or entity).  Statements such as "all
rights reserved" and "may not be reproduced" are especially
reprehensible, since they are antithetical to the free software
principles under which TeX Live is produced.

- You may use any cover or media label designs that you wish.  Such
packaging and marketing details are not covered by any TeX Live license.

- Finally, we make the following requests (not legal requirements):

a) Acknowledging that TeX Live is developed as a joint effort by all TeX
   user groups, and encouraging the user/reader to join their user group
   of choice.
   
   The web page http://www.tug.org/usergroups.html may be referenced as
   a list of TeX user groups.  We also appreciate your explicitly
   listing all the user groups as given on that page, space permitting.

b) Referencing the TeX Live home page: http://www.tug.org/tex-live/.

c) Crediting the editor of the original TeX Live: Sebastian Rahtz.

Such credits may be placed on the label of your media, your cover,
and/or in accompanying text (for instance, in the acknowledgements
section of a book).

Finally, although it is certainly not a requirement, we'd like to invite
any redistributors to make a donation to the project, whether cash or
in-kind, for example via https://www.tug.org/donate.html.  Thanks.


If you have any questions or comments, *please* contact us.  In general,
we appreciate being given the chance to review any TeX Live-related
material in advance of publication, simply to avoid mistakes.  It is
much better to correct text on a CD label or in a book before thousands
of copies are made!

We are also happy to keep anyone planning a publication informed as to
our deadlines and progress.  Just let us know.  However, you should be
aware that TeX Live is produced entirely by volunteers, and no dates can
be guaranteed.


LICENSING FOR NEW PACKAGES:

Finally, we are often asked what license to use for new work.  To be
considered for inclusion on TeX Live, a package must use a free software
license, such as the LaTeX Project Public License, the GNU Public
License, the X Window System license, the modified BSD license, etc., or
be put into the public domain.  Please see the url's below for more
discussion of this.

Thanks for your interest in TeX.

- Sebastian Rahtz, editor, for the TeX Live team


TeX Live mailing list: texlive@tug.org
TeX Live home page: http://www.tug.org/tex-live/

The FSF's free software definition: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Debian Free Software Guidelines:    http://www.debian.org/intro/free
FSF commentary on existing licenses:
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

LPPL: http://latex-project.org/lppl.html or texmf/doc/latex/base/lppl.txt
LPPL rationale: texmf/doc/latex/base/modguide.pdf