[tex-live] Re: Norwegian hyphenation patterns status

[Karl Berry]

Hi Dag,

Thanks much for the reply.

    If Ole can deliver a set of patterns he is satisfied with, 

Happily, he has already done so.  He has extended and fixed Rune's
original automated set considerably.

Also happily, Ole just wrote me in private email that he is happy for an
explicit GPL or other free license statement to be inserted, and gave me
the ok to upload that to CTAN.  So I'll do that later today.

     included as the only Norwegian patterns

Do you think backward compatibility is a concern?  That is, is there a
body of LaTeX documents using the prior nohyph Norwegian patterns which
would get different output if retypeset with the new patterns?

TL has only ever included nohyph.tex.  I'm not sure about previous
versions of teTeX (I know it uses nohyphbx now).

    My files (nohyph2.tex) were created before the concept of a licence was 
    common. I have no problems with a GPL licence.

Perhaps it would be good to upload a nohyph2.tex with a free license and
a note about nohyphbx.tex to CTAN (while we're thinking about it), or
else to remove it if you think the confusion isn't worthwhile.

    list of hyphenated words was not public. 

Virtually all the hyphenation pattern files, including Knuth's, were
prepared from non-free word lists.  (Perhaps the patterns you made with
your student are an exception. :) So although I can imagine a legal
argument that we are in trouble, in practice I see no way we can worry
(or do anything) about this.

Thanks again,
Karl