| Goswin von Brederlow 2005-03-04, 5:58 pm |
| A Mennucc <mennucc1@debian.org> writes:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Justin Pryzby wrote:
>
I seriously disagree.
Source code is source code. Obfuscated or not does not change that. It
fullfills at least the letter of DFSG#2. For it to violate DFSG#2 you
would have to show that it is not source and the gcc already prooves
you wrong there. If you use 'obfuscation' or in other words
'readability' as measurement what source is then a lot of PERL code
would not qualify in my eyes.
And since the source would be DFSG free you and anybody else would be
free to edit it, comment it, reverse engeneer it and make it more
readable. I find that option important enough to overlook other minor
(and changeable) details.
In my eye even _deliberate_ obfuscation (which remains to be proven)
does not violate the letter of DFSG#2 while it does not follow its
spirit. There are other sources in Debian that are far more unreadbale
or even compiler output (e.g. pascal to c compiler output). Sometimes
it is either that or no package at all. And is that in the users
interest?
If you want to argue against obfuscated source you have to pull the
GPLs 'The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work
for making modifications to it.' out of your hat or similar license
terms. Under that term deliberatly obfuscated code would not be
source.
MfG
Goswin
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