Frank Mittelbach’s “moral obligation” license for the LaTeX multicol package

In a recent paper on the history of the LaTeX Project Public License, Frank Mittelbach includes a digression on the licensing of his enormously useful multicol package. He describes the “moral obligation” license of this package as

perhaps the most curious license ever drawn up, in that I required … the licensee to determine the importance of [the software] for his or her circumstances and determine the license fee from that. TUGboat 23(2011)/1:83–94; section 1.2 (p. 84)

The actual terms of the license appear in the multicol.sty file in the standard LaTeX distribution:

%%  Users of multicol who wish to include or use multicol or a modified
%%  version in a proprietary and commercially market product are asked
%%  under certain conditions (see below) for the payment of a license
%%  fee.  The size of this fee is to be determined, in each instance,
%%  by the commercial user, depending on his/her judgment of the value of
%%  multicol for his/her product. ...

I wrote to Mittelbach recently about this matter, and he resolved my questions very charmingly.

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Multicol enables segments of different numbers of columns to appear on the same page, along with other functionality helpful in formatting columns. I have used this package in typesetting Jerry Norman’s Manchu dictionary, to place single-column headings at the start of each letter-section in an otherwise two-column text. For example:

I think this sort of section-header must be desirable in many dictionaries.

Manchu dictionary done

Since late Spring of 2009, I have been helping my teacher, Jerry Norman, get the final revision of his Manchu lexicographic material into shape for publication. Earlier editions appeared in 1978 (U. Washington Press) and 1967 (Taipei). I have typeset it (strictly, composed it) using LaTeX and checked and corrected the entries in numerous fine details, and persuaded Prof. Norman to add material on pronunciation and the script, surely important in any dictionary of a foreign language. My mother, who knows neither Manchu nor Chinese but who has professional experience as a proofreader, has read the whole thing carefully twice and suggested countless improvements to the English and the organization of the book.

Now it is done. After two and a half years, today I sent Prof. Norman the final draft of the dictionary, which I hope will see print within 12 months, as A Comprehensive Manchu-English Dictionary.