On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 10:26:47 +1100 Ben Finney <ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Riley Baird <bm-2cvqnduybau5do2dfjtrn7zbaj246s4...@bitmessage.ch> > writes: > > > On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 23:47:02 +0200 > > Francesco Poli <invernom...@paranoici.org> wrote: > > > > > I am personally convinced that nowadays the definition of source > > > should *no longer* be regarded as an open question: I think that the > > > most commonly used and accepted definition of source code is the one > > > found in the GNU GPL license. > > > > It is a commonly used and accepted definition, but as evidenced by > > this conversation and the others which have occurred on Debian > > recently, it is too vague to be easily applied. > > That's not true. There are many cases that are clarified by that > definition, to the point of clear resolution. > > This is a big improvement over no consensus definition. It is > demonstrably not “too vague to be easily applied”. > > You may want a definition that is easily applied to *all* problematic > cases, but that's unattainable I fear. If you're looking for a perfect > definition of some legal concept, you're dealing with the wrong species. > > Meanwhile, let's use the consesnus definition of “source form of the > work” which has been very helpful to date. Some problematic cases will > of course remain, and we will deal with them as they arise. Okay, I guess that handling problematic cases by consensus works too. We can intuitively state what is and what is not source in practically all cases, even if we can't give a reason for it.
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