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$Id: LICENSE.TL 22793 2011-06-05 15:38:08Z karl $ COPYING CONDITIONS FOR TeX Live: To the best of our knowledge, all software in the TeX Live distribution is freely redistributable (libre, that is, not necessarily gratis), within the Free Software Foundation's definition and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Where the two conflict, we generally follow the FSF. If you find any non-free files included, please contact us (references given at the end). 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 independent 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). 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 TeX Collection DVD 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 file README.<yourwork> 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> DVD, based on TeX Live YYYY", where YYYY is the year of TeX Live you are using. 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. 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, as listed on the web page http://tug.org/usergroups.html. b) Referencing the TeX Live home page: http://tug.org/texlive/ Such information 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 again 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/dev.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, 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 General Public License, the modified BSD license, etc. (Please use an existing license instead of making up your own.) Furthermore, all sources must be available, including for documentation files. Please see http://tug.org/texlive/pkgcontrib.html for more information, and other considerations. Thanks for your interest in TeX. - Karl Berry, for the TeX Live project ------------------------------------------------------------ TeX Live mailing list: http://lists.tug.org/tex-live TeX Live home page: http://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-dist/doc/latex/base/lppl.txt LPPL rationale: texmf-dist/doc/latex/base/modguide.pdf