On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 11:49:00PM -0400, Boris Veytsman wrote: > As I understand it, Knuth put in the public domain the *code* of TeX, > Metafont, CM fonts etc. Fragments of his code, his creative ideas and > insights are freely used in many derived works. However -- and here is > the most profound idea -- Knuth realizes, that TeX is not a sum of > pieces of code, it is an entity, a whole. This entity is what Knuth > did not want to put in PD. He wanted to retain the full rights on this > entity.
Are you talking about a compilation copyright here? Those are tricky beasts. I've never before seen a compilation copyright with a license that allows modification, and I wonder how it would work. > The proof that Knuth perfectly understood what he was doing is in the > fact that he trademarked the name TeX -- something that LaTeX3 should > do with respect to LaTeX. For you this trademarking and putting TeX in > public domain may seem contradictory -- for me it makes sense. ... but trademarks and copyrights are different legal constructs. I don't see how this connects to your previous paragraph at all. Richard Braakman
