Re: sources and scripts for generated files

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> writes:

> Andreas Röhler writes:
>
>  > assume you are kidding.
>
> No, he's not.  GPL "sources" are defined as the preferred form for
> editing if you wish to make changes to the software.  If the .h file
> is as easy to edit as the other, it might be the preferred form for
> local changes (or at least acceptable).  On the other hand, it's
> converted by an automatic process *and* the script that does so is
> part of Emacs (AIUI).  So there's a strong presumption that the file
> from ICU is the source.
>
>  > If not kidding, I'm still wondering, resp. asking: please make the
>  > GPL a text every Emacs core developer may understand without
>  > undergoing expensive law-studies.
>
> That cannot be done; the GPL's primary purpose is to protect various
> interests in the covered Work, and readability to non-lawyers takes a
> back seat to that.
>
> But this part is not hard to understand.
>
> (1) You must provide sources that are reasonably convenient to edit.

No, the preferred form for modification.  If there is an upstream
document from which the sources are generated _and_ this upstream
document is not one-of-its-kind (meaning that there will never be
updated documents in the same format), then obviously the upstream is
the preferred form for modifications.  Because then rerunning the
harvesting script is a proper part of maintenance, and then changes to
the generated document would get overwritten.

-- 
David Kastrup