On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 09:50:06 +1100 Riley Baird wrote: > On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 23:47:02 +0200 > Francesco Poli <invernomuto@paranoici.org> wrote: [...] > > For further details on what I think about the definition of source, > > anyone interested may read my essay: > > http://www.inventati.org/frx/essays/softfrdm/whatissource.html > > That's a good essay! Hopefully, something like that will become the > reference that Debian actually uses in the future. I am glad you and other people liked it. > > I have some concerns, though: Some of your concerns have already received responses from someone else, but let me reply to the following one. [...] > > One completely different thing is when nobody has some form of > > the work any longer. That form cannot be preferred for making > > modifications, since it no longer exists. In this case, the actual > > source is the preferred form for making modifications, among the > > existing ones. > > I write a program in C++ and release the binaries under a free license. > The binaries are not the source form. But five years later, when I lose > the USB which contained the only copy of the C++ code, the binaries > become source. If the (previously existing) source is really lost, what else can we do? We have to choose which form is preferred *among the existing ones*. One can take the binary executable as source, if he/she prefers to use that form in order to make modifications to the program. Another possibility is generating another form from one of the existing forms (for instance: decompile the binary executable and, possibly, enhance the result by hand, until it becomes readable enough to be usefully modified). If the newly created form is preferred over the other existing forms, then it *is* the new source. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/ There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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