Re: Defining 'preferred form for making modifications'
On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 01:36:15PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > Why would C stay the preferred form for modifying a work for eternity,
> > even when the current work bares hardly a resemblence to its C
> > original?
>
> It is *PART* of the source. Not the whole source, but part of it.
No, it's part of its history, not its source any more.
I think you've been reductio'd ad absurdum.
In the situation where I take a simple GPL'd C program, compile it to
assembler, then hand-optimise the assembler before altering the code,
initially in small ways, eventually completely re-writing the whole thing,
adding huge amounts of new functionality, removing the initial functionality
entirely once it becomes obsolete, and then translating the whole thing
into assembler for a different architecture (the old one likewise became
obsolete), then there is no well-defined point at which the C source ceases
to be any kind of source for the end product, but it most certainly does
happen somewhere along the way.
> No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that editing a
> binary cannot remove your obligation to distribute the C source which
> produced that binary, even if you do a bunch of significant extensive
> edits, even if you threw away the C source.
The C source may have produced the original binary, but that is neither
here nor there. I'm not distributing the original binary. It's ancient
history.
Cheers,
Nick
--
Nick Phillips -- nwp@lemon-computing.com
Bridge ahead. Pay troll.
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