From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
To: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Cc: 25443@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2017 15:57:08 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87wpdtd6i3.fsf@russet.org.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <E1cTVAw-0006Q0-BN@fencepost.gnu.org> (Richard Stallman's message of "Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:55:54 -0500")
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> > I find myself in the bizarre position of suggesting that you haven't
> > read the GPL properly...
>
> Before asserting that someone experienced is totally confused,
> I suggest you double-check your own reasoning.
It was just a light-hearted aside. I did say "bizarre", and didn't say
"totally confused".
> > The "source" files in question are no longer distributed.
>
> It is premature to put quotes around "source". You are arguing that
> we have the option of making something else the real source code,
> but we haven't done so yet. At present, those files are the source code.
>
> You say they are "no longer distributed". That can't be entirely true,
> since the GNU Project does still distribute them.
Indeed. They are distributed as part of Emacs, but not available from
their referenced source.
> Would you please lay out the facts that you are talking about?
> Pressuring for a particular decision is not being helpful.
> Please show us the situation clearly so we can see what is right to do.
Yes. A file (CTLau.html) which looks like this....
<html>
<head>
<title>CTLau : Hanzi input by Cantonese transcription (Lau style)
</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=gb2312">
</head>
<body bgcolor=#ffc0c0><pre>
#
# CTLau.html : Hanzi (GB2312-80) input dictionary for Sidney Lau's
# (STUFF REMOVED)
# Revision History:
# This file was originally converted in 1993 from a hanzi input file
# based on Fung Fung Lee's Cantonese phonetic transcription scheme
# proposed in 1988 (http://umunhum.stanford.edu/~lee/chicomp/CPS.html).
# This file was released under the terms of GNU GPL on May 14, 2001.
#
#<hr>
A 阿啊鸦呀丫哑亚吖氩锕
AAI 埃挨嗌哎唉隘嗳
AAN 晏俺
(STUFF REMOVED)
</body>
</html>
Is reformated to look like this (CTLau.el):
;; Quail package ‘chinese-ctlau’
;; Generated by the command ‘miscdic-convert’
(STUFF REMOVED)
(quail-define-rules
("a" "阿啊鸦呀丫哑亚吖氩锕")
("aai" "埃挨嗌哎唉隘嗳")
("aan" "晏俺")
(STUFF REMOVED)
AFAICT, we cannot update CTLau.html from a downstream source any
longer. And either way, it has not been updated since 2001, except for a
change to formatted in the licence comments.
> > The "source" files in question are no longer distributed. So, any future
> > changes would have to come from the emacs developers. If we decided that
> > the .el files are the place to make these changes, then, they become the
> > "preferred form for modification". They become "the real source". I see
> > nothing in the GPL that prevents us from making this change.
>
> In principle, that is a possible option. Whether it is a good idea
> is another question.
>
> There is no grave problem here. Let's see what Handa-san says
> about this technical question.
The reason that this came up is that the generation of CTLau.html has to
be performed by "bootstrap-emacs", as the lisp needs to be available
before "emacs" is dumped. Keeping the work performed by bootstrap-emacs
as simple as possible is a useful aim.
> > Unless you mean "an obligation" in some sense other than "because of the
> > GPL".
>
> Anyone distributing software has a moral obligation to distribute the
> real souce code.
I agree with this position, but I see no moral or ethical issue in
changing our minds about what the real source code is. I have raised a
technical question; I think it only needs a technical answer. If it is
going to cause any issues for maintainence of leim, then, of course,
it's a bad idea.
Phil
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2017-01-17 15:57 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-01-13 21:46 bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files Phillip Lord
2017-01-14 15:48 ` Richard Stallman
2017-01-16 18:17 ` Phillip Lord
2017-01-17 14:55 ` Richard Stallman
2017-01-17 15:57 ` Phillip Lord [this message]
2017-01-19 1:53 ` Richard Stallman
2017-01-19 12:04 ` Phillip Lord
2017-01-19 22:40 ` Richard Stallman
2017-01-19 23:10 ` Phillip Lord
2017-01-21 22:35 ` Richard Stallman
2017-01-24 6:33 ` handa
2017-01-24 18:57 ` Richard Stallman
2017-02-06 10:34 ` Phillip Lord
2017-02-06 22:51 ` Richard Stallman
[not found] <87vasm5cop.fsf@gnu.org>
2017-02-07 21:51 ` Richard Stallman
2017-02-15 11:01 ` Phillip Lord
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