Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!educ-isis!teexdwu
From: teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: source for the TeXbook
Message-ID: <1990Nov24.205751.20596@ioe.lon.ac.uk>
Date: 24 Nov 90 20:57:51 GMT
References: <47335@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Reply-To: teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK)
Organization: Institute of Education University of London
Lines: 30

In article <47335@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> mdeck@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (Mary Deck) writes:
>
>What should be done with the TeX source for the TeXbook?  We have a
>copy hanging around from a while back, and I remember something about
>"If you have this file, please delete it."  If we're not supposed to
>have it, I'll see that it's removed, but if we are allowed to keep it
>(but not print it out, of course, since it's copyrighted), then we'll
>keep it for its tutorial value.  Thanks.....

You are perfectly within your rights to have the TeX sources of the
TeXbook hanging around.  That's why they are made available, so that we
mortals can learn from them.  But, as you say, it is an infringement of
copyright to print them out.

I'm curious about your memory of the phrase "If you have this file,
please delete it." Certainly I have no memory of such a phrase in the
TeXbook sources.  Perhaps you are thinking of the puzzler at the 
beginning of plain.tex:

  % N.B.: A version number is defined at the very end of this file;
  %       please change that number whenever the file is modified!
  % And don't modify the file under any circumstances.

Frankly, anyone who thought compiling and printing the tex 
sources of the TeXbook was a cheap easy way of getting the text
would be in for a surprise.  Go buy the thing, and save yourself
a nervous breakdown.  (Remember, the person doing this would not
have read the TeXbook already ... )

Dominik