davek@hp-lsd.HP.COM (Dave Kumpf) (08/22/89)
I was reading an old Seybold Report last night and encountered the following statement: "Knuth's source code for Tex has been published by Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA) and can be licensed for commercial purposes at nominal cost from the American Mathematical Society (Long Island, NY)." (The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing, April 4, 1988, p. 12) Yet the copyright notice on TeX:The Program says that Knuth has placed the program TeX into the public domain, and that the reader is free to use the algorithms in his own code. Further reading indicates that only programs which conform exactly (other than system dependencies) to the published algorithms may be called TeX. There is no mention of licensing requirements or fees for any purpose, including commercial use. What's the real story? Are the TeX algorithms in the public domain only if the use is non-commercial? Why doesn't the copyright notice in TeX:The Program say that? What would really hold in court? Dave Kumpf hplabs!hp-lsd!davek davek%hp-lsd@hplabs.hp.com
bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (08/27/89)
In article <8210007@hp-lsd.HP.COM> davek@hp-lsd.HP.COM (Dave Kumpf) writes: |I was reading an old Seybold Report last night and encountered the following |statement: | |"Knuth's source code for Tex has been published by Addison-Wesley (Reading, |MA) and can be licensed for commercial purposes at nominal cost from the |American Mathematical Society (Long Island, NY)." | |(The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing, April 4, 1988, p. 12) Don't worry. This is just plain wrong. TeX--the algorithms, the code, the ideas, &c. is in the public domain. The only restriction is that the name "TeX" is reserved to those that have passed the "trip" verification test. That's it. No fees, no royalties. (Well, actually, rights to *print* the code are also reserved, since it is released as a book, but this is presumably not relavent to the current context. It might, however, explain the confusion.) -- -- Brian, the Man from Babble-on. ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts -- "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of" -- THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
dhosek@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Donald Hosek) (08/27/89)
In article <8210007@hp-lsd.HP.COM> davek@hp-lsd.HP.COM (Dave Kumpf) writes: >I was reading an old Seybold Report last night and encountered the following >statement: > >"Knuth's source code for Tex has been published by Addison-Wesley (Reading, >MA) and can be licensed for commercial purposes at nominal cost from the >American Mathematical Society (Long Island, NY)." > >(The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing, April 4, 1988, p. 12) > >Yet the copyright notice on TeX:The Program says that Knuth has placed the >program TeX into the public domain, and that the reader is free to use the >algorithms in his own code. Further reading indicates that only programs >which conform exactly (other than system dependencies) to the published >algorithms may be called TeX. There is no mention of licensing requirements >or fees for any purpose, including commercial use. > >What's the real story? Are the TeX algorithms in the public domain only >if the use is non-commercial? Why doesn't the copyright notice in TeX:The >Program say that? What would really hold in court? > People can use TeX for whatever they like without paying any license fee. I have no idea where the Seybold report got their information but I can't think of any possible interpretation of that statement which reflects the truth. A couple of examples: (1) many commercial installations use TeX for in-house reports and their own publications--they pay no license fee; (2) numerous publishers use TeX for producing their hardcopy and also pay no license fee; (3) there are numerous commercial versions of TeX (e.g., pcTeX, TurboTeX, Textures, Northlake Software's VMS TeX, $\mu$-TeX, CTeX, The Arbortext TeX distributions, AmigaTeX, ST TeX, and probably others which have escaped my recall) which are distributed without paying any license fee as well as at least one TeX-like program (VAX DOCUMENT's back end) which is based on the code. I have however, just realized the source of the confusion. The AmS-TeX macros are owned by the American Math Society and to use those, one must pay a license fee if the use is commercial (take a look at the \everyjob message sometime). This, most likely is the source of the confusion. -dh P.S. keep your eyes peeled for news of TeX 3.0 and MF 2.0