Re: GPLed software with no true source. Was: Bug#402650: ITP: mozilla-foxyproxy
On Tuesday 30 January 2007 12:48:15 pm Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Joey Hess wrote:
> > Don Armstrong wrote:
> > > The bright line is actually pretty straight forward: Do you modify the
> > > file with syntactic whitespace or the file without? Is it preferable
> > > to modify the file without the keyword expansion or with?
> >
> > Preferable by whom?
>
> The upstream maintainer. Whatever form(s) of the work the upstream
> maintainer actually uses to modify the work is the prefered form for
> modification.
I think that the GPL would have use much more specific language if the
author's intent had been to require the form of modification in use by the
original author. It doesn't take a law degree to write:
"The source code for a work means the form of the work used by the original
author for making modifications."
Since that language was not used, and instead the highly flexible
term "preferred" was used, I suggest the GPL is far more accepting of
modifications to the distributed source than is being granted in this
conversation.
I had always taken the clause to mean that between distributing a JPG or an
XCF, that the XCF was preferred because it provided greater quantitative
ability to modify the source. Whereas a javascript file with the whitespace
striped out it's quantitatively different from a modification standpoint.
(There are, of course, various qualitative differences.)
-Sean
--
Sean Kellogg
e: skellogg@gmail.com
w: http://blog.probonogeek.org/
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