Re: Defining 'preferred form for making modifications'

[Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <edmundo@rano.org>]

People don't edit program binaries usually, so let's take a realistic
example: I produce a bidirectional bilingual dictionary using some
Perl scripts that automatically generate LaTeX source for both sides
of the dictionary from a marked up version of one direction. However,
just before going to press I notice some errors or bad formating in
the final result and I fix those problems by editing the LaTeX source
rather than the original source or the Perl scripts. Now, my original
source was based on someone else's GPL data, so, what do I have to
distribute together with the PDF?

I think I would have to distribute both the original source and the
LaTeX source and an explanation of what happened. The preferred form
for making modifications depends on the type of modification: to make
minor local changes, the preferred form is the LaTeX; to make major
global changes, such as adding a lot of new words or replacing one of
the languages with a different language, the preferred form is the
original marked up source.

It's true that the GPL wording implies that there is a single
"preferred form", but in this case there seem to be several such
forms, and it makes more sense to understand the GPL as referring to
all of them rather than forcing a choice between them.

Edmund