Re: GPLed software with no true source. Was: Bug#402650: ITP: mozilla-foxyproxy
On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 04:25:56PM -0500, Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-29-01 at 14:06 -0500, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
> > I've ran into a problem: given firefox extension released under
> > GPL as shipped (.xpi files) has obscured .js files -- all
> > formatting was removed.
>
> So, if I read your comments correctly, the .js files aren't
> intentionally obfuscated. Whitespace has just been removed in order to
> speed up download. It may be misguided, but it's also pretty common
> among JavaScript programmers.
Except the javascript file is zipped in a .xpi file, making the space
removing argument moot.
> I was able to run the JavaScript code through GNU indent
> (http://www.gnu.org/software/indent/ ) and get readable and modifiable
> output. I think there are some special-purpose JavaScript beautifiers
> out there that could give even better formatting.
>
> I don't think that this is a case where the user gets unmodifiable
> source.
However, the GPL requires the prefered form for modification to be
provided. And what the author uses to modify is definitely not the
whitespace-free version.
Mike
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