[tex-live] Unclear License of AMSLaTeX

[Frank Küster]

karl at freefriends.org (Karl Berry) wrote:

>     i don't think he has
>     stated that the only way a genuine "tex" -- that
>     being an implementation that passes the trip
>     test -- can be created is by using the provided
>     change file mechanism.
>
> Agreed, definitely not.  But can it created by 
>
> cp tex.web mytex.web
> emacs mytex.web
> <hack for a decade or so :)>
>
> ?  Or do I have to write my own implementation from scratch, using code
> from tex.web as I see fit, but not starting with the whole thing and
> modifying it?  That's the crucial question.

Yes, and what about taking out only a portion - e.g. the algorithms for
paragraph and page breaking - while the rest - parsing, expanding,
ligatures etc - are implemented independently?

>     about a fourth point in the list at the top of
>       http://www.ams.org/tex
>     addressing "licensing"?  if that's acceptable,
>
> I think that would be very helpful.

Yes, that would be fine.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)