Re: jquery debate with upstream
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 8:02 PM, Craig Small wrote:
> FWIW, I think the concept of a graphic needing its source is also bogus.
> It means that the upstream have to hang onto some script they might of
> used once years ago for.. what reason?
> To give you a concrete example, I made the SPI logo (and I think it is
> the current one, it looks like it) using gimp and some sort of lisp script.
> I don't have that script anymore, does that make the logo non-free?
> Should that change the status of the graphic?
> If, instead of a script I manually typed/moused the commands, does that
> change the status?
You are conflating two issues:
What is the "source" as required by DFSG item 2. Under the scenario
you have described, the PNG of the SPI logo appears to be "source"
since if you/upstream were to modify the SPI logo you/upstream would
use the PNG since the XCF and Lisp script no longer exist.
What upstream should be doing with the forms of data that they have or
create. Under the scenario you have described, you threw away (or
lost) the more useful forms, which I think was a mistake. As the
upstream maintainer and the Debian maintainer for a bunch of games
where the original authors have thrown away the source for the
graphic/video data, preventing simple modifications like increasing
the resolution to modern screen sizes, let alone fixing visual
glitches or using different 3D models, I find it a bit sad that you
threw away this data. I assume you wouldn't compile your C code to
assembler, throw away the C code, ship the assembler and hope you
never have to fix bugs in it, optimise it or add new features. This is
essentially what you did with the SPI logo. I expect there are people
out there who might want to modify the SPI logo, for example see what
various artists have done for the Debian swirl for DebConf logos,
which were only possible because the vector formats where not thrown
away.
I would encourage anyone creating code, docs, fonts, graphics, audio,
video or other digital works to think carefully before throwing away
the higher-level forms in favour of lower-level forms. I would
encourage Debian folks to look at what upstream provides, evaluate
what the source might be and in cases of doubt ask upstream for
clarification. This page provides a guide for the sort of things
upstream should think about and for Debian folk to audit.
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Games/Upstream/#source
Sometimes you will find that upstream's preferred form for
modification is available in a VCS repository but not the tarball,
sometimes possibly resulting in GPL violations on Debian's behalf (cf
FSF/Emacs or Warzone 2100) and that you simply need to ask them to
ship it in tarballs. Sometimes you will find that upstream relies on
artists who aren't willing to share their preferred form for
modification (such as the Blender/Povray source for a 3D scene).
Sometimes you will find that upstream's preferred form for
modification has been thrown away and they don't intend to modify it
again.
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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