[tex-live] removal of a package from texlive

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Hi Vafa,
>
> On Di, 02 Apr 2013, Vafa Khalighi wrote:
>> Suppose a package is licensed under LPPL but the author removes it from CTAN (because he does not want people use that package any more for whatever reasons he has got); as a consequence this package also gets removed from TeXLive. Are people legally allowed to not update their TeX distribution (or say store that package on their computer) on purpose to use that package?
>
> Yes they are. You are granting with LPPL the right to use the package,
> change it, modify it, etc etc etc.
>
> You can release new versions under different licenses, but what you
> have granted cannot has been granted.
>
> In additin, everyone is free to copy your code and develop a new
> version.
>
> And if you stop developping this package, then also the author-maintained
> status of LPPL is gone, and someone else can take over the same package
> under the same name.

Oh, that is great in fact. I knew that TeX Live could keep the last
version of a package with the proper licence, but I didn't know that
if author resigns, one can keep the old name.

I'm not using LaTeX, but I'm still very happy that TeX Live didn't
have to question the removal of Polyglossia in this batch:

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 6:26 AM, Vafa Khalighi wrote:
> I wrote an email to François Charette saying that I am happy to maintain
> both arabxetex and polyglossia.

Mojca