>I think you're a little over-zealous in your interpretation. The original >distributor is clearly the only entity not distributing what for them is >the preferred form for modification, and that's their prerogative. Whilst >we may not like it, I don't think it in any way makes it undistributable; >as far as we are concerned their commented sources don't exist -- to us, >the obfuscated source *is* the preferred form for modification.
Can a company release a binary - or the disassembled source to one - under the GPL? Does that make it DFSG-free? By your argument it would. If this were just a minor screwing with the code, then I would accept the cleanup offered by the maintainer. But serious code obfusication can make the code worthless for editing, to the point where the dissassembled assembly could actually be easier to read. (Quick: if OOOO00OO0 = 00001, and OOO000OO0 = 00010, what's OOO00OO0 + OOO000OO0 + 000?) It's just not source at that point.
