On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 14:53:35 +0200 Kai Blin wrote:
> > I would suggest sticking to the GNU GPL.
> > I cannot see what is not clear with the GPL applied to artwork...
>
> Well, Section 3 of the GPL allows you to copy and distribute the work
> if you also distribute the source (or make it accesible, or the like).
Yes, briefly speaking...
>
> The source is defined as "The source code for a work means the
> preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
Definetely.
>
> It's not always clear what the preferred form of modification would be
> for a piece of media.
I think the right question you should ask yourself is "which form would
I use, should I make some modifications to it?".
Of course I assume that the person who asks himself/herself this
question is reasonably skilled in the involved field (image manipulation
or digital movie editing or computer programming or ...): for instance
someone who doesn't understand C++ cannot claim that unobfuscated C++ is
not the preferred form for making modifications to a program written in
C++...
OTOH, there are cases in which the preferred form for modifications
changes over time: suppose the above program is manually translated from
C++ into Python and further modified. At that point, the source code is
in Python.
> For a picture composed of multiple layers, it's
> a version with all the layers intact and seperate, but often, in the
> process of working on a multi-layer image, the artist will combine a
> set of layers to save ram and speed up the processing. Is that image
> still a source?
If I ask that artist to make some modifications to the new image,
would he/she restart from the totally-separated-layer form or rather
from the partially-flattened form?
That is the test, IMHO.
>
> Now, movies get even more tricky. A short movie clip often requires
> hours of raw material. Does everyone who wants to distribute the movie
> need to have gigabytes and gigabytes of raw movie scenes available?
That is indeed an issue.
Is source still source when it grows beyond the imaginable?
But that issue is not GPL-specific, IMHO.
Are you really providing the freedoms that we value, without providing
the preferred form for modification?
>
> I'll gladly be convinced that I'm misinterpreting the GPL here. If
> this thread is off-topic for this channel, please reply to me
> personally.
There have already been some discussions about this issue on this list,
so I think that it's not OT.
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