🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug13.221040.2123@almserv.uucp>, alufml@purple.fnma.com
(Francois-Michel Lang) writes:

|> I just received a tape of the Unix TeX distribution from the
|> Northwest Computing Support Center and handed it over to the
|> sysadmin folks at my site for installation.  Now they tell me
|> that they will *not* install it because TeX is public domain
|> software, which is verboten here.  (Why, given this policy,
|> we can still use GNU Emacs is another matter...)

Well this is easy, TeX is not PD, so that should solve your problem.  Well,
maybe not --- they'll say free software is forbidden as well, right?

It is of course moronic to judge the trustworthiness of software by the
amount of money that was paid for it.  

People who are familiar with TeX and Knuth know that TeX is one of the most
robust and well-understood pieces of software available anywhere regardless
of price, and yet Knuth has made it available to anyone  free of charge. 
It makes my blood boil that your site's alleged security policy perverts
Knuth's generosity into a stigma of untrustworthyness for TeX.  

|> In an effort to convince the sysadmin folks that installing and
|> running TeX will not destroy the world as we know it:

Provide them with a C.V. of D.E. Knuth, and a complete set of "Computer &
Typesetting".  Point to the complete annotated source code for TeX.  Point
out that any O/S upgrade is far more likely to produce a security hole than
any user mode software, especially high quality software like TeX.  If all
else fails, stage a coup, and install support staff who understand that
their role is to provide service to users, not to frustrate them.