Thomas Hood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > License texts must be objective, fair and reasonably precisely > worded if they are to be enforceable.
This is mostly true, but it is very important to understand that we are talking about *legally* objective, fair, precise. Such things as "the preferred form" are very normal legal terms, with quite precise standards to be applied. > The question at hand is: In those licenses that dictate that the > distributor of a binary must also distribute the source of that > binary in "the preferred form for making modifications", what > does 'preferred' mean? "Prefer" is a perfectly normal English word, I really don't think it's that ambiguous. The preferred form is the form in which people actually (REALLY ACTUALLY) prefer to make modifications. A given format might be preferred for one case, but the same technical format not be preferred for another case. The chief obstacle you point to is that we wonder "preferred *by whom*?" For the life of me, I cannot think of a case where the *real* preferences would differ depending on who is being measured. It seems to me that *everyone* would prefer modifying the C code for Emacs to modifying the assembly code. Can you give a case where the alleged ambiguity actually comes up? It's not "which form do you like most", or even "which form do you prefer", but much more specific: "which form do you prefer for making modifications", and the use of the passive, "is preferred", appeals to a general practice for making modifications to similar works, which general practice, in fact, really does exist. > I suggested that the term be defined, roughly, as 'the form of the > program available to the distributor containing the most information'. If this form is really the one most preferred for making changes, then you have changed nothing. If it's *not* the most preferred form in any case, then why should we accept it? Thomas
