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From: Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com>
Subject: Re: GPL and "free" software (was: air traffic control software)
Date: 1999/04/23
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In article <7fl9q5$ab7@drn.newsguy.com>,
  bill@nospam wrote:
> In article <7fl5ac$9sh$1@news2.tor.accglobal.net>, "Terry
> says...
> I also think that someone working on opensource code,
> will try harder
> to make their code better, for the simple reason, is that
> a lot of people will be looking at it.

One more point here. To me open source code MUST be well
documented, or the point of open source is lost. The GPL
can only require sources to be made available, not good
quality sources, but the spirit behind the GPL requires
that the sources be accessible.

One could meet the letter of the GPL by providing
obfuscated sources with no comments, but if all your
assignment statements look like

OOOO000OO0OOOO := O0000O000OO000O0 + O0000O0O00000;

with no comments, I think most people would agree that you
have not *really* makde the sources available.

Similarly if you supply a parser which has giant tables
of LRK junk, without supplying the programs that built
the tables, you might meet the letter of the GPL
requirement but definitely not the spirit.

I once worked on a compiler project where the contract had
a clause forbidding the use of any table driven techniques.
Why? Because on a previous project which required source
delivery, the contractor had done just that (delivered
LALR parsing tables without the tool that built them!)

Robert Dewar

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