Sam Hartman <hartm...@debian.org> writes: > I guess even under my proposal option, packaging the classifier might be > tricky. If I deleted the training data and no longer had it, then I > think under my option, the classifier could be DFSG free.
I realize that we have made exceptions in the past for files where the original source has been lost so the form in which they exist, although quite clearly not the original source, is now de facto the preferred form of modification. (Sam may be thinking of the same PDF files that I'm thinking of.) However, I am very leery about extending that exception to cases where people are intentionally creating that situation by deleting the input data on purpose. It's one thing when the source has been lost but the output document is still important for historical purposes. I think that falls into the category of cases where humans are not computers and we do not have to blindly follow rules without considering their underlying purpose. But extending that case to cases where people are intentionally discarding the training data so that they don't have to produce it is a step too far down a slippery slope for me. I think we would think very hard before accepting a compiled binary into the archive whose original source had been lost, and would be very unlikely to accept a compiled binary where the original source was intentionally deleted so as to make it DFSG-free. The "preferred form of modification" test is not, to me, the only test for compliance with the DFSG. The point of the DFSG is more than to *only* put everyone on an equal footing. There is also a straightforward desire to actually have meaningful and useful source code, without which free software is kind of pointless. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
