Re: Must source code be easy to understand to fall under DFSG?

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Ola Lundqvist <opal@debian.org> writes:

> What I want to tell with this message is that we should stick to
> what the license tell.

This is actually different from current practice in the Debian
project. The consideration is given to the freedoms that are received
by a recipient of Debian. Thus, "stick [only] to the license [text]"
isn't enough; the freedom a user has in the work, having received it
in Debian, is what we examine.

> If we consider this as a violation of the DFSG (because of #2
> above), then where do we draw the line between closed and open
> source?  Must software be easy to understand, or should we consider
> all software that have hardcoded values as closed source?

I don't know of an official definition of "source code"; I do know
that many consider the GPLv2 definition, the "preferred form of the
work for making modifications to it", to be a good definition to
measure against.

Much of the debate about binary blobs seems to centre on whether an
inscrutable lump of bytes can truly be considered the "preferred form
of the work for making modifications to it".

This seems to place the question as much with the primary authors of
the work as with the license; but that's not without precedent, since
the opinion of the authors (or copyright holders) is usually
considered to have some weight when thinking about what a license
means.

-- 
 \         "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the |
  `\    death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire."  -- |
_o__)                      Avram Grumer, rec.arts.sf.written, May 2000 |
Ben Finney