What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

Le Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 04:29:36PM +0000, Joerg Jaspert a écrit :
> Hi Maintainer,
>
> rejected, im missing the source for the files in doc/* (if you look at
> them its pretty clear that its LaTeX source).

Hi Joerg,

I would like to discuss this on -devel, because I think that the issue
of these documents is open.

In the program dialign-t, some documentation files have been obviously
generated with LaTeX. In the absence of sources, I have made new sources
in XML, that I use to generate a manpage.

Now that I have a XML source that is almost equivalent to the latex one,
I could generate html, pdf and ps replacements to the existing
documentation and distribute them in the binariy Debian package. Of
course the best would be that upstream provide the LaTeX source or
accept the XML ones, but I got no answer from him.

Given that:

- despite the absence of latex sources one is allowed to take a
html, pdf or ps editor and modify the old documentation in the
.orig.tar.gz under the terms of the LGPL;

- the content of the source-orphan files is available in another source
format which could be used to generate equivalent documents that
would only differ by their formatting;

could such a package be qualified for the main archive?

Have a nice day,

--
Charles Plessy
http://charles.plessy.org
Wak�, Saitama, Japan


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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007, Charles Plessy wrote:


- despite the absence of latex sources one is allowed to take a
html, pdf or ps editor and modify the old documentation in the
.orig.tar.gz under the terms of the LGPL;


Fine.


- the content of the source-orphan files is available in another source
format which could be used to generate equivalent documents that
would only differ by their formatting;

could such a package be qualified for the main archive?


I guess if you leave out the original binary PDF from the tarball this
is no problem at all.

Kind regards

Andreas.

--
http://fam-tille.de


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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

Hi all,

this is a nice and good discussion, I want to link in because there are
other things awaiting here ...

On Mo, 19 Nov 2007, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Now that I have a XML source that is almost equivalent to the latex one,
> I could generate html, pdf and ps replacements to the existing
> documentation and distribute them in the binariy Debian package. Of
> course the best would be that upstream provide the LaTeX source or
> accept the XML ones, but I got no answer from him.

I would suggest:
- remove the upstream .pdf
- include your .xml and the generated pdf

Other questions arising from this:
What if upstream ships a pdf AND the source, but the generation of the
pdf relies on not-available fonts.

I would still ship this pdf into my Debian package out of the following
reasons:
- the source is present, no freedom is taken: The document is present,
the source code.
- the pdf can be regenerated albeit with minor quality.
- shipping the higher quality document helps the user more than shipping
a lower quality document

Is this something which would be accepted?

Best wishes

Norbert

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Debian Developer <preining@debian.org> Debian TeX Group
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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

On Mo, 19 Nov 2007, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > - the pdf can be regenerated albeit with minor quality.
> > - shipping the higher quality document helps the user more than shipping
> > a lower quality document
>
> Why would the XML-based document be lower quality? If dblatex is used
> for generating the PDF, it should look just as good.

I was not talking about this specific document, but take a doc that
ships with commercial fonts used, say Optima. The source code is
present and can be reused for other projects, still the users have the
nicer original document.

I consider this ok for Debian.

Best wishes

Norbert

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Debian Developer <preining@debian.org> Debian TeX Group
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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

On 11208 March 1977, Charles Plessy wrote:

> - despite the absence of latex sources one is allowed to take a
> html, pdf or ps editor and modify the old documentation in the
> .orig.tar.gz under the terms of the LGPL;

"Despite the absence of c source one is allowed to take a .so file and a
editor[1] and modify the program in the .orig.tar.gz under the terms of
the LGPL".

[1] whatever you prefer to edit binaries directly

Not good. :)

> - the content of the source-orphan files is available in another source
> format which could be used to generate equivalent documents that
> would only differ by their formatting;

> could such a package be qualified for the main archive?

If you drop upstreams .ps/.pdf files and then just ship yours - thats fine.
Best thing of course is upstream shipping the right source.

--
bye Joerg
<liw> HE, we had sex in Debian for many years, yes, before I put a stop
to it

What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

On 11208 March 1977, Norbert Preining wrote:

> Other questions arising from this:
> What if upstream ships a pdf AND the source, but the generation of the
> pdf relies on not-available fonts.

If you know it -> contrib. (And one should know, as one should try
rebuilding it at least once).

> I would still ship this pdf into my Debian package out of the following
> reasons:
> - the source is present, no freedom is taken: The document is present,
> the source code.
> - the pdf can be regenerated albeit with minor quality.

Thats different to "relies on not-available fonts".
Relies == cant be build without them.

> - shipping the higher quality document helps the user more than shipping
> a lower quality document
> Is this something which would be accepted?

Not if I can somehow detect it.

main is pretty simply defined as
"must not require a package outside of main for compilation or execution
(thus, the package must not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
"Build-Depends" relationship on a non-main package),"

which your package would do, if it can't build without some extra fonts.
It could go into contrib.

--
bye Joerg
A.D. 1517:
Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door and is promptly
moderated down to (-1, Flamebait).

What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

Le Mon, Nov 19, 2007 at 10:46:14AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert a écrit :
> On 11208 March 1977, Charles Plessy wrote:
>
> > - despite the absence of latex sources one is allowed to take a
> > html, pdf or ps editor and modify the old documentation in the
> > .orig.tar.gz under the terms of the LGPL;
>
> "Despite the absence of c source one is allowed to take a .so file and a
> editor[1] and modify the program in the .orig.tar.gz under the terms of
> the LGPL".
>
> [1] whatever you prefer to edit binaries directly

> If you drop upstreams .ps/.pdf files and then just ship yours - thats fine.
> Best thing of course is upstream shipping the right source.

Well, I still think that there is a difference between a PDF file and a
binary executable, and that in any case, a PDF file is not a "program"
in the same sense as the commands and applications we use, but since
this discussion already happened before, I will not try to change the
mind of the local majority. Also, to my knowledge, there are no good PDF
editors in Debian.

So if remove the .ps/.pdf files, and keep the html files (which are
modifiable and which you did not ask for removal in the mail I answer),
it is acceptable for Debian? I will not replace the PDF/PS file because
I am not interested in replacing something that already works, nor in
looking for the correct stylesheet, nor in doing some uuencode/uudecode
gizmo in this package. I would nevertheless do this effort if it would
allow the upstream sources to enter Debian unmodified…

Have a nice day,

--
Charles Plessy
http://charles.plessy.org
Wak�, Saitama, Japan


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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

Hi Jörg,

On Mo, 19 Nov 2007, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> > - the source is present, no freedom is taken: The document is present,
> > the source code.
> > - the pdf can be regenerated albeit with minor quality.
>
> Thats different to "relies on not-available fonts".
> Relies == cant be build without them.

Recreating the exact same pdf (modulo creation date etc) relies on these
fonts. Recreating the same document with different fonts, and thus with
different layout and appearance is possible.

> > - shipping the higher quality document helps the user more than shipping
> > a lower quality document
> > Is this something which would be accepted?
>
> Not if I can somehow detect it.
>
> main is pretty simply defined as
> "must not require a package outside of main for compilation or execution
> (thus, the package must not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
> "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-main package),"

Neither of this is hurt AFAIS. Compilation can be done, execution
(viewing) can be done (the fonts are subsetted into the pdf files, so no
need for them to be installed).

Removing the high-quality doc would only take away an option of the
user.

Take for example a document providing a showcase of fonts for math. It
includes about a dozen of free fonts and commercial fonts. The user can
view the source code, can view the pre-made pdf and choose what he
wants, he can reuse the code in the document for other docs or tests or
whatever.

Best wishes

Norbert

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Debian Developer <preining@debian.org> Debian TeX Group
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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

* Norbert Preining:

> What if upstream ships a pdf AND the source, but the generation of the
> pdf relies on not-available fonts.
>
> I would still ship this pdf into my Debian package out of the following
> reasons:

The embedded fonts are still restricted, so it has to go into non-free
(perhaps contrib is possible, too, but I don't think it applies when the
package is a derivative work of something that fails the DFSG, instead
of merely requiring it for building).


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What to do when the LaTeX sources are missing, but an XML equivalent was rewritten from scratch ?
 

On Mo, 19 Nov 2007, Florian Weimer wrote:
> The embedded fonts are still restricted, so it has to go into non-free

These fonts are not the full fonts, but sub-setted. Otherwise type
companies would NEVER allow any distribution of pdfs with their fonts.
But they do.


Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> Vienna University of Technology
Debian Developer <preining@debian.org> Debian TeX Group
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