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Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 02:14:38AM +0200, Guillem Jover wrote:
> On Wed, 2019-07-24 at 00:49:24 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > ##################
> > I do not consider a flat tarball to be a preferred form for modification. 
> > Thus, like any non-source form, it must be accompanied by a way to obtain
> > the actual form for modification.  There are many such ways -- unless you
> > distribute the software in highly unusual circumstances, a link to a
> > network server suffices; see the text of the GPL for further details.
> > ##################

> > * comments giving rationale for a change tend to be written as VCS commit
> >   messages

> This concept keeps being put forward from time to time, and it keeps
> making little sense to me. The "preferred form of the work for making
> modifications to it" is the actual source files, that's the work. A
> tarball is a way to *transport* and *disseminate* those files, it's
> not the work, and people do not edit the tarball. A VCS can be used
> to *record* those modifications, or to *transport* and *disseminate*
> them, in the same way you could do with a series of patches. But
> "modifying" the VCS is a by-product of having modified the actual
> source.

By this logic, a pile of .c files with comments removed or preprocessed
with cpp would be allowed as well.  The VCS is also a means to store
human-readable comments.

Another piece of [meta]data that a flat tarball lacks is authorship
information.


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anti-tarball clause and GPL Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> - 2019-07-24 00:50 +0200
  Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> - 2019-07-24 01:30 +0200
  Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> - 2019-07-24 02:20 +0200
    Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> - 2019-07-24 02:40 +0200
      Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> - 2019-07-24 07:20 +0200
        Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> - 2019-07-25 18:50 +0200
          Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2019-07-25 19:00 +0200
            Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-07-25 19:20 +0200
            Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> - 2019-07-25 21:10 +0200
      Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org> - 2019-07-24 12:00 +0200
      Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2019-07-28 15:40 +0200
        Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2019-07-28 18:30 +0200
  Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Yao Wei <mwei@debian.org> - 2019-07-24 03:00 +0200
    Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> - 2019-07-25 20:10 +0200
      Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL "Yao Wei (魏銘廷)" <mwei@debian.org> - 2019-07-26 03:50 +0200
  Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@cateee.net> - 2019-07-24 10:20 +0200
  Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> - 2019-07-24 22:30 +0200
    Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Yao Wei <mwei@debian.org> - 2019-07-25 00:40 +0200
      Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> - 2019-07-25 21:10 +0200

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