Fwd: License to distribute your arabtex package sought

[Karl Berry]

    true.  however, during the past week, ams tech-support received
    a message asking if ams has any objection to them (who are not
    in any way known to me) including ams-tex on a cd of free tex
    material that they intended to sell (to make money) and support.
    *i* have a few concerns, though i have yet to be told the official
    policy and some other folks here say we shouldn't care.

The whole point of free software (and the lppl) is that these people (or
anyone else) do not need to ask permission or notify anyone to
modify or redistribute the programs.

So while they may be polite in asking, I don't think there's anything
you can (or should do) about it.  And, as you say, you shouldn't
*expect* redistributors to ask.

Of course, they can't (shouldn't) use the ams's name in an endorsement
or anything like that.