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Re: anti-tarball clause and GPL

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On 24.07.2019 00:49, Adam Borowski wrote:
> Hi!
> In the light of the currently discussed GR proposal, I wonder if the
> following license clause would be considered DFSG-free and GPL-compatible:
> 
> ##################
> 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.
> ##################
> 
> I believe such a statement would be GPL-compatible; rationale:
> * by the 2011 Red Hat kernel sources outcry, it is obvious such a tarball
>    is long obsolete
> * a flat tarball deprives the recipient of features of modern VCSes
> * comments giving rationale for a change tend to be written as VCS commit
>    messages
> * future forms are not banned: it is conceivable that next week someone
>    invents a revolutionary new form that wins over git
> 
> Thoughts?

Few comments:

A "flat tarball" cannot be considered a preferred form for modification. 
Few tools allow you to edit a flat tarball (maybe `mc`). It is just a 
form of distribution. We sent to GNU patches, new files, or extract of 
functions.

I think you confuse the "preferred form for modification" to "preferred 
method of distribution of sources".

Compression of tarball often change, so we need "new" (less than 10 year 
old) tools to extract many tarball (tarball format also had few 
improvements).  GPL do not restrict format and compression of tarball. 
Early GNU programs come with many different distribution methods. 'tar' 
is much modern (so initially on "modern GNU" systems). The tar was never 
considered as only (or main) method to obtain sources.

IIRC from very old discussion, you can have a GPL compatible 
distribution method of your choice, if you distribute tools to extract 
sources, or such tools are easy available to the user who bought your 
software. There is no need to have free tools: if you distribute 
binaries for Solaris, it is enough that user could use a proprietary 
Solaris command to get the source.


Note: tarball are often not GPL compliant, because we are lazy. VCS 
solves most of the problems (or helps):

GPL requires us to have and distribute a changelog, so that we can track 
better licenses, modification time, and copyright. Debian requires own 
changelog (we use GPL for Debian stuffs), but as we saw, upstreams often 
forget it.  In such cases (without changelog) a tarball cannot be 
considered fully GPL compliant.

ciao
	cate

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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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