Re: 25+2 packages with (Glade) generated C source files without the source
Others have explained why this is not a critical bug in this specific case. (Although as an aside it seems quite incomprehensible to me that these projects, and Gnome in general, have effectively thrown away the source!) But there was one misunderstanding here which I think is important to correct: Manterola writes (Re: 25+2 packages with (Glade) generated C source files without the source): On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Sami Liedes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [ stuff ] No. .c files are still source code. This is not correct. `Source code' means (in the words of the GPL) the preferred form for modification. In many programs the .c code is automatically generated from some other input in the source tree. Compilers for some languages even work by translating the source code to C and feeding it to a C compiler. The output from code generators and language translators is not source, even though it may be in C (or some other language that humans sometimes write). So Sami was right to suspect that there was a serious problem here and to investigate. Whether something is source or not cannot be determined simply by looking at which language it is written in. The question is: if we wanted to edit this, which file would we need to change ? If someone somewhere still has the input file, and is generating new versions of the output, then the input file is still the preferred form for modification. If the input file is completely lost, or the output file has been directly edited to the point where the input file is no longer relevant, then the output file has become the source code. I would say that _at the time when these projects were first shipped_ in this state, it _was_ a clear violation (both of our principles and of the GPL) to do so. If we had noticed at the time that the source was missing, and insisted that it was provided and that the package should be built from it, the source would not now be lost. We might ask authors to include their .glade files, IF they still have them (if they don't, then the .c files have already become the actual source code). If the .glade files can still be found, and the glade2 translator resurrected and plumbed back into the build system of these programs, we would be in a much better position. As Sami says, many of these programs are effectively immutable because editing the autogenerated C is impractical. But that's a lot of work. I'm not sure it can be done sensibly in time for lenny. If such changes _can_ be made in time then they're probably pretty safe. After all the output from glade2's code generator can be compared with the current manually-edited files. I'm not sure if the RMs would agree :-). Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 25+2 packages with (Glade) generated C source files without the source
Le dimanche 31 août 2008 à 04:17 +0300, Sami Liedes a écrit : I went through some of these and checked them by hand, and generally couldn't find the glade project anywhere in the source tarball (it might be in the diff, I didn't check for that - would that BTW be OK, to have source code in diff only?). The only questionable case I found by this sampling is dia, where the file is generated by Glade and then hand-coded to make GNOME optional and add the underline for accelerated buttons. I’m pretty sure many of the list are in similar cases. Now loading the UI directly into the application is the standard, but not so long ago people generated template code with glade and then edited it by hand. The .glade file was removed simply because it has become irrelevant. Cheers, -- .''`. : :' : We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code. `. `' We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to `-our own. Resistance is futile. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: 25+2 packages with (Glade) generated C source files without the source
On Sat, 2008-08-30 at 23:19 -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Sami Liedes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only questionable case I found by this sampling is dia, where the file is generated by Glade and then hand-coded to make GNOME optional and add the underline for accelerated buttons. And what's there to question, then? This is exactly the case I was talking about. Some people might use glade to generate a .c as a starting point, and then continue editing the file (or not, but just keep the .c file, once it's been generated). This is perfectly fine, and we do NOT need the .glade files used. (Especially when glade-3 does not actually support generating any C code or updating the C source code files output by glade-2.) Any bugs filed so far should be closed forthwith. The comment is old, it relates to a function of Glade that was removed by Glade upstream and whether the .glade file is distributed or not, the C can no longer be generated with the current version of glade. All this process has really shown is that upstream teams are commonly lazy about removing old comments. Yawn. Sorry, Sami, but this was a waste of effort. -- Neil Williams = http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: 25+2 packages with (Glade) generated C source files without the source
On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Sami Liedes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I grepped the source tarballs in Lenny (testing) main section for the note DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - it is generated by Glade. which indicates the file is generated using the Glade UI editor. Then I checked if these packages have any *.glade* files, which would be the Glade projects, i.e. the source code (at least in the GPL sense, preferred form of modification) for these. For those of these packages for which this is not a false alarm, I believe this would fail DFSG #2, and for those being licensed under GPL, it would probably make them non-distributable. No. .c files are still source code. And even taking into account the DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE comment, it doesn't clearly mean that the author of the program necessarily has not edited it. We might ask authors to include their .glade files, IF they still have them (if they don't, then the .c files have already become the actual source code). But in any case it's not a violation of DFSG #2, since .c files are still source code. Bugs like these would be wishlist, at most. The preferred form of modification for this case is quite relative. Some people do prefer to edit .c files instead of .glade files, because you don't need a special tool for that. The only questionable case I found by this sampling is dia, where the file is generated by Glade and then hand-coded to make GNOME optional and add the underline for accelerated buttons. And what's there to question, then? This is exactly the case I was talking about. Some people might use glade to generate a .c as a starting point, and then continue editing the file (or not, but just keep the .c file, once it's been generated). This is perfectly fine, and we do NOT need the .glade files used. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
