Andrew Suffield writes: > On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 12:36:30PM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > Requiring layered formats for > > source is also going to result in PNGs being non-free in many cases. > > This sort of mindless sophistry accomplishes nothing. Requiring source > does not make programs non-free. Failing to provide source is what > makes programs non-free. The contents of the Debian archive is not > non-free just because we require source.
Who is being a mindless sophist? Take, for example, /usr/share/doc/doc-iana/cctld/jp/sakamoto-sig.jpg from doc-iana, currently in main. It is a JPEG of a signature. We cannot distribute Sakamoto-san. The image was produced in Photoshop, which means there may not be a precursor file that is freely manipulable. What is source? The current interpretation is that it simply is not relevant to the freedoms we want to serve, but if we change that interpretation, it because non-free due to the changed interpretation. Or/usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-html/MindTerm-SSH-HOWTO/leech.jpg, which is a screen capture of an apparently non-free FTP tool. LeechFTP itself is the apparent source under your argument. Or will someone be obliged to make a new bitmap image capture -- obviously not really the source, but good enough to manipulate? A number of the (old) HOWTOs contain JPEG images; it is plausible that the files used to create them no longer exist. What then? ntp-doc includes a collection of JPEG photos of products that presumably work with ntpd. What is the source for those images? splint-doc includes a tangential photographicl image of a wall at the start of the Splint manual. Will the Debian maintainer be obliged to remove that? > In most cases, requiring layered formats for source is going to result > in getting layered formats for source. It is obviously the correct > thing to be distributing; upstreams who have it but don't distribute > it probably just didn't think of it. In a significant number of cases, requiring layered formats for source will mean that DDs must create DFSG-sanitized "orig" tarballs by removing images that upstream distributes. There may be no layered precursor file; the precursor file may no longer exist; or it may be in a non-free format. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]