Re: Let's stop feeding the NVidia cuckoo
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:23:21 +0000, Matthew Garrett
<mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> I've found several patches to procmail written by people who aren't the
> original authors. This suggests that it's practically modifiable. But
> you still haven't answered my question - what use is freedom to modify
> if nobody can make practical use of that freedom?
Free-as-in-speech, remember? What use is a Photoshop file if you
don't have Photoshop? What use is an MS Word document if you don't
have Word? What use is C++ source if you don't have a C++ compiler?
What use is yacc input if you don't have yacc? The latter three cases
were just as dependent on non-free tools as the first not so long ago.
It was common free software practice to include both input and output
for the non-free tool (although I'm not sure I ever saw CFront output
in a source tarball) so that the software would be both understandable
and compilable.
Maintainability was still restricted to those with access to the
non-free tool, but that was seen as both 1) somewhat less important to
free-as-in-speech concerns as such, and 2) temporary because free
alternatives were under construction. But whether or not a free yacc
would ever be available, I don't think anyone would have accepted as
free-as-in-speech a piece of software that included yacc output
without corresponding input. Declining to provide the "real" source
code for a program is not just an obstacle to maintainability, it's a
breach of good faith. It's playing lip service to free-as-in-speech
without enabling others to understand and use the ideas in your code.
That's only an issue for data such as images and formatted text if the
ideas involved in the process of creating them are significant to the
creative content of the work. I may not be impressed by someone who
only provides a JPEG or a PDF if they obviously maintain the data in
some more editable form, whether or not they use free software to edit
it; but I probably don't care that much unless it's an attempt to
channel use of the ideas in the work. Ultimately, that's why I object
to the GFDL; and I would object similarly to calling a game
free-as-in-speech if it's impractical to remove some trademarked
graphic element because it's been pre-composed into many scenes that
can't be satisfactorily reproduced without precursor image formats
that the author has withheld.
I think that it's reasonable (and the majority will of the Project) to
override maintainers' judgment about the freeness of data, but only
where a free-as-in-speech issue is being significantly compromised. I
don't think it should be stretched to cover JPEGs (or PDFs) generally.
Personally, I feel the same way about firmware; if the process used
to reproduce the firmware blob isn't particularly relevant to the idea
content of the driver, then I am happy to let the maintainer decide
whether the upstream is acting in good faith with regard to the
ostensibly free driver.
Cheers,
- Michael
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