Re: GPLed software with no true source. Was: Bug#402650: ITP: mozilla-foxyproxy
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Joey Hess wrote:
> The same could be true of any secret modifications to any program
> made by its upstream author.
They'd have to be publicly knowable, though, so secret modifications
don't really work.
> Perhaps the debhelper that I actually develop is written in a very
> high level language or templating system that compiles it down to
> the dh_* files that you get in the source package. They do all look
> somewhat similar, don't they? If I made such a claim, would you
> consider that debhelper needs to be removed from Debian now?
Obviously we should try to figure out if the author was lying or
making fun of -legal first, but if it was actually true and debhelper
was GPLed, then we can't do anything else.[1]
Debian should distribute the (digitally distributable) form of the
work that the author actually uses to modify the work. We *must* do so
in the case of GPLed works.
That in both of these cases it's trivial to actually modify the work
merely obscures the real problem: the users of the software are second
class citizens to the copyright holder.
Don Armstrong
1: I know it may be annoying, but it is what the letter of the GPL
requires, and definetly what its spirit asks for.
--
Quite the contrary; they *love* collateral damage. If they can make
you miserable enough, maybe you'll stop using email entirely. Once
enough people do that, then there'll be no legitimate reason left for
anyone to run an SMTP server, and the spam problem will be solved.
-- Craig Dickson in <20020909231134.GA18917@linux700.localnet>
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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