Re: Integrity of Source Code
Scripsit Wesley W. Terpstra
> On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 02:30:28PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > I would argue that there is a difference. The GPL interactive
> > copyright warning requirement explicitly applies only if the modified
> > program is interactive - thus it is legal to modify the program
> > for non-interactive environments.
> Alright then, would loosening the restriction to having the message
> displayed at program startup to the user work?
No. There might not be any user around at startup time at all
(scenario: unattended machine boots after a power failure).
If the program is modified to work in an embedded system there might
not be any suitable way to display textual output at all.
If the program is modified to work aboard a deep-space probe, getting
those silly bits telling who wrote it back to a human operator each
time the whatsitsname is turned on may be prohibitively expensive. Must
the program wait to verify that the message has been received (then we
could be talking hours) or is it enough to blast the bits out on a
short-range antenna nobody actually listens to?
--
Henning Makholm "De er da bare dumme. Det skal du bare sige til dem."
Reply to: