From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Compiled files without sources???? Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:03:18 +0200 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87sjpm7lvt.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <87wrk54pzp.fsf@ginnungagap.bsc.es> <87tyf7aw9b.fsf@engster.org> <871uxgyu0u.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87vcus3slm.fsf@engster.org> <87k4b4jv8p.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <877h7444uj.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87tya82mv5.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87ei1bzjwg.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <4E3133CE.7010101@cs.ucla.edu> <4E31F0B3.3030505@cs.ucla.edu> <87mxfw90oo.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <87r558ms8j.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <87zkjv33w3.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <87sjpn8if0.fsf@ambire.localdomain> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1312110224 9068 80.91.229.12 (31 Jul 2011 11:03:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:03:44 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jul 31 13:03:40 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QnTo2-0002xa-Tg for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:03:39 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33887 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QnTo2-0001NE-FW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:03:38 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:54899) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QnTnz-0001Mt-QG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:03:36 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QnTny-0001OA-DP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:03:35 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:54329) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QnTny-0001O6-0d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:03:34 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QnTnw-0002tC-N4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:03:32 +0200 Original-Received: from p508ed76e.dip.t-dialin.net ([80.142.215.110]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:03:32 +0200 Original-Received: from dak by p508ed76e.dip.t-dialin.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:03:32 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 55 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: p508ed76e.dip.t-dialin.net X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:ZovrJsiibXPQeB0ik+9Xu3nzzrU= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 80.91.229.12 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:142557 Archived-At: Tim Cross writes: > On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Thien-Thi Nguyen wrote: > >> The problem is that the differences aren't accountable, not that >> there are differences.  To be accountable, the path from original to >> current must be transparent.  If that path involves manual editing, a >> commit (+ ChangeLog) should be generated.  If that path is machine >> manifested, the program that does the change must be distributed (+ >> commit + ChangeLog, of course).  In the case of distribution, GPL >> comes into play (recursively). > > FYI, for anyone who perhaps may not recognize how important this is, > this issue has been reported in the latest issue of LWN. Both article and comments are quite off-color. For one thing, they assume that the parser generator has been Bison and the respective code C. That does not really make all that much of a difference with regard to the implications except that it might have been easier to hand-edit the files. Then they assume that the FSF is in violation of the GPL. Since Emacs is (c) FSF, the FSF can't be in violation of its own license. The issues are different, but still need fixing. Anyway, I find it bad taste to drag an internal discussion from the list into the limelight like that. Even if the original reporter would have gotten his facts right, the conclusions of the average reader would have likely been off-color. The mud-slinging is detrimental to making a solid and timely fix. The article in LWN is at . The front page at has the lead-in Emacs distributions are not GPL-compliant [Development] Posted Jul 29, 2011 12:10 UTC (Fri) by corbet It turns out that the Emacs 23.2 and 23.3 releases contain a number of parsers created with Bison, but the source for those parsers was not included. That has led Richard Stallman to say: "We have made a very bad mistake. Anyone redistributing those versions is violating the GPL, through no fault of his own. We need to fix those releases retroactively (or else delete them), and we need to do it right away." This state of affairs is clearly just a slip which will be fixed quickly, but it shows that anybody can make mistakes. I can't seem to find a good permanent link for the article that would include this lead-in. Anyway, even though the publication seems to me to be in bad taste and ill-advised, I would not want to have mailing list or archives limited to a closed circle. It's a risk we have to live with. -- David Kastrup