Karl Goetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > a) some hex data is common knowledge the field > > b) some of it is the result of trial and error tweaking because > that´s > > the only way to develop for that kind of chip or hardware. > > > > The trouble with (a) is that we probably don´t have any experts > working > > on gNewSense, so some data is probably incorrectly marked as > non-free. > > Such is life, when being overly careful :) > > > > For (b) we need to decide wether this is an acceptable method to > produce > > libre software. If so then we also need a way to recognize it. > > If its the prefered form of modification, then it it could be argued > that its free.
If this is the preferred form of modification, then it *must* be argued that it is free; if there´s no hidden source code, then the hex data *is* the source code in and of itself, and then the software is free if the file is under a free license. > The thing that would really swing it (to me) is that the hex is > documented somehow - "These are the values that didnt break the world > and are used by xyz function" for example. > That would be nice, but this is more a question about coding practises: Yes, writing code so that it´s clear and easy to read, and keeping it well documented, is a good coding practise which I myself strive to follow. It does not, however, have anything to do with the question of whether the code is free/non-free. Otherwise, I know of a great number of Perl scripts which would also have to be marked as non-free because they contain so convoluted one-liners and regular expressions that they can probably only ever be understood by the author. What matters is ultimately not whether data is hexadecimal or not, but whether a) you´re free to use, modify, share and improve it and b) it "hides" some source code which was used to generate it if ( a and not b) -> the software is free, and this would be true even if it was all hexadecimal. br Carsten -- http://www.modspil.dk _______________________________________________ gNewSense-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
