On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 04:26:17PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: > On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 04:31:17PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > Can you remind me of the advantages of NOT interpreting as "object form" > > as "any form other than the preferred form for modification"? > > For the detailed description, see > http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200303/msg00131.html I've read it. > In a nutshell, I don't know of any reasonable person that would define > "object code" as the output of tr a-z A-Z on a text file. Nice to meet you. :) That is, I'm perfectly willing to accept that as an example of "object code" if the only alternative is to call it "source code". > By altering the definition here, we create ambiguity. This makes > things weak in the court, more litigation-prone, and harder to > interpret -- as we see here. > > If a court looks at this, and sees "object code", can we really know in > advance if they would use the normal definition or this "liberal" one? I > suspect they would use the normal one, which is another problem. What if we had a license like the GPL that used "source form" instead of "source code", "transformed form" instead of "object code" and "executable form", and "Work" instead of "Program"? > If the license iteself defined object form that way, that'd be one thing. > (It'd be confusing, but we could evaluate it only one way.) > But it doesn't define "object code" at all. The FSF does provide a hint, by saying "object code or executable form" in two places. They probably figured an expert witness or two would be able to dispose of the issue should it ever reach court. -- G. Branden Robinson | Don't use nuclear weapons to Debian GNU/Linux | troubleshoot faults. branden@debian.org | -- US Air Force Instruction 91-111 http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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