Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rex!uflorida!haven!umd5!texins02
From: texins02@umd5.umd.edu (TeX Short Course Instructor)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Status of TeX
Keywords: TeX - is it PD?
Message-ID: <4997@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 89 17:09:35 GMT
References: <2520@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> <18780@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Reply-To: texins02@umd5.umd.edu (TeX Short Course Instructor)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 27

In article <18780@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> epdx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu  (John Lacey) writes:
>In article <2520@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> steve@cs.hw.ac.uk (Steven Salvini) writes:
>>I recently down-loaded a copy of DOSTEX and having read the "COPYING"
>>information file I'm still a little unclear as to the status of this program.
>>Simply, is it public domain/shareware or what?
>
>I don't see how it could be.  (I know nothing about DOSTEX in particular.)
>TeX is copyrighted by the American Mathematical Society, and that should 
>protect derivative works and all that as well.  Anybody have any information
>(not ideas) on the issue of derivatives of TeX and the AMS copyright?

The terms of TeX's copyright permit TeX to be freely copied so long as no
changes are made to the program.

Machine-specific implementations, however, may be copyrighted with 
different copyright terms. This copyright covers only the changes to TeX
(through WEB's CHANGE file mechanism), and not TeX itself.

In the specific case of DOSTeX, it is permitted to freely copy the program,
but not to sell it (as per GNU). The fee to the author is to guarantee
notificiation of updates and also limited mail support of the program.


-dh

U33297@UICVM.UIC.EDU
(Don Hosek)