Update: I've written to John to ask about copyright assignment, but discovered in the mean time that there are one or two other authors to talk to. I will see what John says first before considering how to proceed.
I have also butchered the current version of latexmk to remove all the functionality automake doesn't need (previewing, printing, and various types of customisation, some other cruft). This has reduced the LOC (counted with cloc, so actual code) from 3,724 to 2,916 lines. The down side is that this is still long, and there seems to be a fair amount of cruft. The upside is that this is very well commented code (2,000 lines of comment for the remaining 3,000 lines of ocde). There are a lot of notes about bits of doubtful code that should also ideally be checked and sorted out. If it sounds like an advantage to have a butchered version even without a copyright assignment (i.e. a fork which is designed for integration with make rather than interactive use), then I'd be happy to publish it. If not, then I'll wait until I work out the story on copyright assignment, but keep using my butchered version in the mean time. -- http://rrt.sc3d.org
