> Stallman's Printer Driver Test, as formulated above, has two > non-obvious > consequences: > 1. If GPLed/LGPLed code is used in embedded devices, then a > way needs to > be provided for the customer to update the code. > Such a requirement would have been helpful in overcoming > Y2K problems > in embedded devices, which are date-sensitive > (fortunately, there were > not too many such devices two years ago). > 2. Test cases and test scripts should be considered as part > of software's > source code, as far as copyright and licensing are concerned: > Representing software in unobfuscated (SP?) source code is > necessary to > make it easy to modify the software. > Making test cases available is necessary to make it easy > to modify the > software, by making it safer to modify the software, by making it > possible to certify that one's changes do not have unintended > consequences.
3. Adequate documentation. Its almost the same requirment as the "unobfuscated source code" rule. Free software should be possible to change by people other than the original developer, software distributed without adequate documentation (at least on source level) is virtually impossible to change. Also, while writing the code, the programmer knew what he was doing, when you look at undocumented code, you often have no idea what the coder was doing, this hiding of vital information should be considered obfuscation. Thanks, Chen. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
