Re: various opinions on Debian vs the GFDL
On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 11:30:15AM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > OTOH, I don't think there are any "revisions" you can make to any
> > sound file that you can't also make with a text editor to a suitable
> > text dump of a WAV file.
>
> My point is exactly that *no* way of editing sound files will allow me
> to do the kind of changes we normally require for freedom.
...
> > > If it is not possible to license sound under GFDL (which I believe it
> > > is not), then the GFDL says that I must not make a modification of
> > > the work that consists of reading it aloud on a sound recording. I
> > > think that's quite easily non-free.
>
> > That's wrong too: that would merely be an opaque copy which is entirely
> > allowable, as long as you distribute a transparent copy as well.
>
> I *cannot* distribute a transparent copy of my spoken performance,
> because no such copy is possible, as argued above.
This argument might have been convincing several years ago, but it
kinda flounders when coming on the heels of a series of (commercial)
games which used text-to-speech technology instead of prerecorded
audio data. Given a decently large sample (say, your spoken
performance) it is possible to generate a fairly convincing sample
with different words in it; the rest is just work with a non-linear
audio editor.
Or, hey, ever play with soundtracker-style mod files?
This is much like saying that transparent copies of paintings are not
possible, because once committed to canvas they can't be
modified. Technology has improved since then.
--
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
: :' : http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing,
`. `' | Imperial College,
`- -><- | London, UK
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