On Tuesday 27 January 2015 15:25:16 Lankswert, Patrick wrote: > Thiago, > > I am not sure that we are disagreeing. I see only one public form, the > contributed code. > > Consider the case, that I contribute a bundle of source that may or may not > come from a code generator. If I contribute more source, does it matter > whether it came from a generator or from hand? I do not think so, no matter > where there code came from, it is my responsibility to make the source code > as a contribution suitable for submission. If that means merging it with > and preserving all of the other contributions that were made since my last > contributions, that is what I must do. > > In the above scenario, the tool is irrelevant, yes?
The difference is what you're modifying and whether you're following the spirit of the definition. For example, if I use my IDE to generate the skeleton of a new class, even though they're generated, the new files are the preferred form of modification. I won't regenerate them again. But I am allowed to use the tool again to generate more new classes. Similarly for us, we can use the tool again to generate new code, but we cannot use the tool to update the sources that were contributed before. That would be, at least, a violation of the spirit of the Open Source Definition and is probably enough to get us kicked out of Debian package repositories. So I am recommending a hardline stance on this: it's ok to generate once, but then no one uses the tool again on the same files. -- Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center
