Re: auctex preview.dvi build failure

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org&gt; writes: By whom? I am quoting the license conditions. It would appear that you change the files around in order to fit XEmacs. That's certainly permitted, but in the course of being able to properly identify bugs reported to the AUCTeX team as a consequence of that, I am pointing out that I have good cause that such changes are clearly marked as not being the responsibility of upstream. I am aware that many terms of the GPL are not usually taken very seriously, and am not usually trying to bother people all too much. In this particular case however, I would appreciate it if this particular clause was heeded. Not because I am an unreasonable troublemaker, but because the dissemination of incompatible versions is worrisome for me. I can see where those changes appear technically necessary for your version, but I want them clearly marked out. And it happens that this is not too much to ask since the GPL conditions support my desire. If the LaTeX code were instead licensed under the LPPL (LaTeX project public license), you would be required to change the file name before changing the file, somewhat more of a hassle since that would require changes in callers. So you see that this worry of incompatibility in the context of LaTeX is not specific just to me. The GPL, as opposed to the LPPL, does not reserve the file name space for upstream. But it at least demands a prominent notice of the changes done. I don't think that this is too much to ask, even if the license did not spell it out. CVS version tags are used for versioning the released files. Obviously, the format of your version control system tags differs, as do the actual versions. So when LaTeX tries parsing the version control tags, the unforeseen format throws it off the track. The proposed changes (I have not analyzed them thoroughly), would likely make the style file work. However, I consider it likely that the resulting log file from the TeX run (when using the \listfiles command, for example) would contain absolutely no trace of this being a special version, but rather make it appear like an upstream version with a strange version number. That's not really satisfactory: typically, bug reports made on TeX specific lists are made using the log output and including the output of \listfiles. Version compatibility of LaTeX packages is usually assured by demanding a file with at least a particular modification date. When you use your own dates and CVS tags, this mechanism is broken. It is important for diagnosing problems that the version is indicated as not being the normal upstream version. Why do I have to beg and rationalize to make you adhere to the license conditions? I would consider it common courtesy to heed my request even if you were not legally required to do so. What's the point in going into confrontation mode about this? As so often, I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish. Fortunately, I am not dependent on my understanding in this case. Just heed the license, mark the changes in the prescribed manner, and be done. It is not like this would be onerous to do. -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ XEmacs-Beta mailing list XEmacs-Beta(a)xemacs.org http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xemacs-beta