Re: texinfo.tex licensing unclear

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Thanks for your reply!

>>>>> "Karl" == Karl Berry <address@hidden> writes:

    Every texinfo documentation file copies texinfo.tex into itself by
    using the TeX command "\input texinfo".

    Karl> I can't answer definitively, that will have to wait for rms.
    Karl> But when extended, this logic would seem to prevent us from
    Karl> using TeX at all -- or virtually any other program, for that
    Karl> matter.

As I understand it, the difference is that TeX acts on the data but
is not distributed with it in source form or in post-processing form.
It's not part of the same work as the document (or texinfo.tex, which
is part of the document), and therefore the GPL does not restrict its
use for processing Texinfo documents which \input texinfo.tex.

However, the semantics of \input are identical to the semantics of
"cat texinfo.tex file.rest > file.texi".  So texinfo.tex is part of
the same work as the document, and the GPL's restrictions should apply.

The semantics of copyright as applied to software are sufficiently
subtle that I am likely quite wrong, but it makes me nervous.  And it
should be documented.

    Karl> And yet it is obviously ok to run, say, gcc on a Sun.

Yes, but apparently only because the GPL explicitly allows it "as a
special exception."


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