Theodore Ts'o <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Well, there is certainly a double-standard going on about fonts. > People have argued that since there exists open source tools for > editing fonts, font files should be considered their own source, even > if Font Foundries have their own preferred source formats and use > propietary tools to create font files via a compilation process.
We do not have a definition of "source code" in the DFSG. You wanted to import the GPL's definition, and that's a bug. A reasonable definition might be (*might* be) something like whatever is necessary to usefully and constructively take advantage of the freedom to modify the thing. For binary programs, the ability to edit the file with binhex is *not* an ability to usefully or constructively modify the thing. But for a font, the ability to tweak the bitmap might well be, because there is nothing more to a rendered font than the bitmap; for a binary program, there is a logical structure to the instructions which it is exceedingly difficult to change without the higher level language from which it was generated. So this is an *excellent* reason that we should not apply the GPL's definition of source code. Thomas
