Re: transformations of "source code"
Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> writes:
> On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 03:52:20PM -0500, Joe Moore wrote:
>> What sort of transformations are permitted?
>
> I'd say any form of lossless encoding that doesn't require a key to
> recover, or with which the key is provided.
>
> This definition has a few advantages:
> * It's technology-neutral. cpio vs. tar, gzip vs. bzip, WAVE vs. PCM
> (for audio files), who cares?
> * "Lossless" is important; it means you can recover the original data
> stream.
> * Encryption is fine (it might be wise, necessary, or even unavoidable
> depending on the distribution channel), but it is the distributor's
> responsibility to ensure that the recipient gets the decryption key.
This doesn't address proprietary or otherwise difficult but not
impossible to reverse formats. Perhaps you could expand the idea of a
"key" to include anything necessary to reverse the process, and say
that if the recipient can't reasonably be expected to have the key (or
whatever word you want to use) it must be provided.
--
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
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