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Re: GPL photographies, eg for backround



On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:09:53 +0100 Josselin Mouette wrote:

> Le mercredi 31 décembre 2008 à 15:50 +0100, Francesco Poli a écrit :
> > > Indeed, but we are not talking of a program but of pictures here.
> > 
> > I am convinced that this distinction is (almost) irrelevant from the
> > GPL point of view.
> 
> The relevance comes from the fact that pictures can be their own source
> code, regardless of the format.

Indeed, pictures *can* be distributed in a form that is source and, at
the same time, the final form (for most uses).
The same holds for programs (think about interpretable scripts, for
instance).

Anyway, please recall the sentence (by Ken Arromdee) you were replying
to: "If you GPL a program and don't provide source code [...]"
If you distribute a GPL'ed program (or picture, or document, or
whatever) and don't provide source code, then you are distributing some
form other than source.  Hence, we were *not* talking about cases were
the distributed form is (also) source...

Going back one further step, the sentence (by you) Ken was replying to
was: "if you are the copyright owner, you can publish it in whatever
format you like, and if under a free license (e.g. the GPL), it will be
acceptable for Debian."
You seem to think that programs have a clear-cut source/object
distinction, while pictures are always source whatever form they are
in.  If this is what you think about pictures, then I disagree, since
only the preferred form for making modifications to the work is defined
(at least by the GNU GPL) as "source code": pictures, as well as
other copyrightable works, may be converted into various different
formats, some of which won't be preferred for making further
modifications.

On the other hand, if you meant something else with the above-quoted
sentence, could you please clarify?  Thanks in advance.


-- 
 On some search engines, searching for my nickname AND
 "nano-documents" may lead you to my website...  
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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