On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:44:56 -0300 Humberto Massa wrote:
> @ 26/09/2005 17:31 : wrote Francesco Poli :
[...]
> > The best definition of source
> > that I know of is the one found in the GPL.
> >
>
> We will have to agree on disagreeing, then. :-)
>
> The definition on the GPL (section 3, paragraph 1 [1]) has many
> ambiguities, the main one IMHO being:
>
> "Preferred form for making modifications". Preferred by whom?
> Preferred by the upstream author? Preferred by some mid-stream
> modifier (Debian, for instance)? Preferred by the last downstream
> modifier (the user, making customizations)?
Preferred by the last downstream modifier, I would say.
Otherwise it would be impossible for me to translate a GPL'd program
from Fortran77 to Python (for instance), further modify it and the
distribute the result.
That is the flexibility of this definition: the source *can* change
form, if the need arises.
Of course it must be the form that's /honestly/ preferred: claiming that
one's preferred form is PDF and silently going on modifying LaTeX code
and recompiling with pdflatex, is /cheating/!
--
:-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-)
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