@ 26/04/2004 18:52 : wrote Florian Weimer :
Humberto Massa <humberto.massa@almg.gov.br> writes:What about source code that has passed an obfuscator or a transpiler?Could be, and probably should be, effectively prohibited in this very point.It should be, but it isn't.
I stated very clearly that it was an incomplete draft.
No, it does not. The JPEG is the original, and preferred format; there is no other. If I don't change the photo, it's there. If I change, it's not the original anymore. And I can always save it so no *more* information is thrown away. I don't get your point. If I get a photo taken from my camera (JPEG), and alter it, save it as JPEG, JPEG is the preferred format for modifications (this is very different from your other PSD/PNG example). If I take a photo from me, paint my hair blue with the Gimp, and ship this JPEG, you can take the JPEG, paint my hair purple, put me a black tooth, and ship this new JPEG with your fork of the package. no problem. If you save the JPEG to an multi-layered PNG, and do your modifications over it, and you say "now this is the source file", it's also OK.This outlaws data stored in lossy compression formats.No. This will only make data stored in lossy compression formats not the Source Code when the source code is non-lossy-compression formatted. Counter-example: my camera spits out JPEG images. This is the Source Code for any images I do using it.Yes, but your definition still outlaws those because no 1-to-1 conversion is possible (even from JPEG to JPEG).
You seem to forget that many packages come from a long, long line of developers (and even redistributers, think the linux kernel for the most radical example of many developers, Mozilla for the example of many distributors).To me it illustrates that "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." isn't so bad as a definition after all. 8-)I am trying to make it a definition... because it is not! Preferred by whom?Well, that's easy: by the person who furnished the compiled binaries for you. If he doesn't do any modifications, he is not a developer, and must have obtained the source code from someone else, and so on.
-- br,M