Re: more evil firmwares found
> That's a stringent precondition. How about if it was modified after it
> was transformed from the original EPS, and then placed into Debian?
> Then, nobody has "source" for the modified image. Since no source for
> the modified form exists, and it was modified in the transformed format,
> you could easily say that the preferred form of modification is now the
> transformed version (at least if you don't want to lose all the changes
> in the interim).
Yes, then in that case the raster image file is the preferred form of
modification.
> Again, the preferred form is subjective, and is not a solid basis for
> determining free-ness.
I don't think there has ever been a real question about what the
preferred form. The preferred form is the form that people are editing
it in. It's just that simple.
In any case, every part of the DFSG is subjective. Human law is often
very subjective. You just can't objectively codify a lot of things.
> codify the preferred-form-of-modification requirement
> into the DFSG,
Are you familiar at all with the concept of case law? The DFSG is like
the U.S. Bill of Rights; it's not always clear from the pure text, so
you have to look at the rulings. We needed a definition of source, so
we used the one at hand.
> > And as people keep pointing out, we need the source for most of these for
> > the same reasons we need the source for software.
>
> I agree. However, DFSG#2 does not support (or contradict) your argument.
Again, it's clear the intent here was software, not program. There is no
precedent for your reading of the section.
> Nitpick: Only if you need lossless recompression. The output is still
> valid, it's just not as good of quality as if you had the source.
Sort of like if I ship source with a program, but warn if you recompile
from source, it will be missing some features?
> Then I suggest modifying DFSG to account for that practical need.
So you'll be happy? This is how we read the DFSG. This is how we've read
the DFSG for a while now. You're quibbling of technicalities of the
letter of the law.
> Machine code versus an assembler listing is a trivial distinction. We
> could make up assembler mnemonics and a program to assemble a "source"
> into the current binary blobs that we have.
But we wouldn't have something that anyone would edit. Therefore it
wouldn't be source as we know it. There's a big difference between
const interest 5 % the interest rate as a percent
load a, r1 % load the principle
mult r1 #interest r2
comp 560 r2 % if it's more than 560 bucks, then
cjmp kill_bill % kill the client
...
and
opp1 &5688, r1
opp2 r1 5 r2
opp3 560 r2
opp4 &17
David Starner -- dvdeug@debian.org
--
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