Re: Proposed: Debian's Five Freedoms for Free Works
Greg Pomerantz said:
> Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
>> I would say that the controlling preference is that of the person who
>> last modified the Work and distributed it in that modified form.
>> Anyone downstream from that person would have to keep the "source" in
>> that form and the "binary" together.
>
> I think one formulation that makes this a bit more explicit is this:
>
> 4) The freedom to change the Work for any purpose, to distribute one's
> changes, and to distribute the Work in modified form. Unrestricted
> access to the form of the work which is preferred by its author for
> making modifications, if applicable, is a precondition for this.
A problem with this is to define who is the author. If it's the original
author, and he prefers InterCal, then nobody else can make changes except in
Intercal.
>
> (with the possible addition of the words "or translator" after
> "author"). This makes explicit the fact that there is no single
> preferred form. If you allow individual authors to define their own
> preferred version, you solve problems like this --
If, on the other hand, you define it as the "last person who touched it",
then all it takes is an employee from EvilCorp(TM) to testify that they
prefer to work with C source code that is obfuscated. Or someone to claim
that they prefer to keep thier files encrypted.
>
(snip)
> I think any definition of preferred form needs to pass this test. In
> other words, I think that any definition of "preferred form" that
> requires an "open" or "transparent" format will be non-free. The same
> holds true for document formats of course. The person who aims to
> prepare a derivative work should have the option of using whatever form
> she prefers, and should have no obligation beyond the distribution of
> modifications in her preferred form. I am not sure at this point the
> extent to which certain exceptions need to be in place in the case
> where the author has some vested interest in selling you a proprietary
> interpreter (in the extreme case, "pay me $100 for the AES key you need
> to decrypt my preferred form"). Any thoughts?
The word "preferred" has problems that it is subjective, and it is not clear
whose preference is relevant. "open" and "transparent" have problems in
their definition. Would "suitable" or "generally accepted as suitable" be a
good substitution? (All non-common "source" files must be distributed in a
form [generally accepted as] suitable for modification)
It would allow Free software to be written in C# or a language with a
non-free toolchain. It would allow sound files to be distributed as either
.au or .ogg, or even .mp3[0]. It would allow documents written with MS Word
to be distributed as .doc files, though.
--Joe
[0] You can't distribute .mp3 files under the GPL because you can't
distribute the mp3 encoder under the terms of the GPL, and the encoder is
required to "build" the .mp3.
Reply to: