Re: Defining 'preferred form for making modifications'
tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
> Again, again, again, I'm not interested here in the definition of
> "free" or "proprietary"; just with the copyleft. In the context of
> the copyleft, if you destroy the source, the object code does not
> somehow mutate into source, and as a result the object code simply
> cannot be part of a copylefted program. I can see no good reason
> for distinguishing C code from .xcf files here.
The difference is that a gif is a lot richer than binary software, in
the sense of humans being able to do stuff with it.
I can certainly see the argument that under certain circumstances a
gif would be considered a binary and something like a .xcf would be
required source (for copyleft). But I think it's quite a stretch to
say that that's always the case. That's exactly why the phrase
"preferred form" is so important. Some of the boundary cases would
have to be decided on a situational basis; that's not a reason to say
that gifs can't be copyleft unless they have accompanying source.
I admit to being a bit confused about the positions everyone's taking
in this thread, though, so I may not be responding precisely to your
point.
--
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
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