[wp-hackers] Fwd: Re: Putting the P in WordPress

[Jeff Jason]

So obfuscating code would violate "The source code for a work means the
preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
But why is this even in question, nothing has been obfuscated.


I feel like this is an argument between people who have just gotten used to
being right a lot in their lives and are too stubborn to give up.  I'm a
pretty stubborn, opinionated, and "used to being right a lot" kind of guy
and I would have given up arguing on this thread 3 times over already if I
had an opinion.  This is getting so ridiculous that I'm starting to feel
like I'm being foolish for having such a strong meta-opinion about all of
your opinions.


In any event.  When you write software decisions need to be made.  I have
seen the effects of allowing a pure democracy to pollute software unckecked.
 The fact of the matter is there needs to be a a core of good developers who
are close to the project and are given the authority to make these decisions
without being required to give in to tyranny of the majority.  Every day
more significant decisions than this are made in support of this and other
pieces of software that are more incorrect than this one.  These decisions
pass by un-noticed because they are not nearly as easily consumable as The
Great Capital capital_P_dangit debate of 2010.  I personally think
spellcheck is a much better implementation; but, I have not been here for
the past X years working and being involved in this project.  I've looked at
the list of bugs that this filter causes and they are all cases where the
user should have either been using WordPress or wordpress to begin with.
 For people with the personal preference to not have their blogs be affected
by this you have the option of changing it yourself, writing a plugin, or
hell branch the code and maintain your own project.  You don't have to feel
like you need to stand up for the poor user who is going to be violated by
having their freedom of speech taken away by this tyrannical filter.  Give
me a break.

I will be leaving the code in or perhaps writing
the aforementioned spellchecker plugin.  In the end the emotion and politics
need to be toned down and this discussion needs to be closed.  The proper
action is no action on this bug.

-J


On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Peter Westwood <peter.westwood at ftwr.co.uk>wrote:

>
> On 7 Jul 2010, at 16:05, Mark E wrote:
>
> > The obfuscation of the easter egg blatantly violates GPL v2. So all the
> > stuff you say about GPL boils down to this: "Do as I as say, not as I
> > do". And here I was thinking that you followed GPL to the letter, as you
> imply other people should do.
>
>
> In what way?
>
> I believe the specific wording from the GPL2 you are interpreting is:
>
> "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
> modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all
> the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
> definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and
> installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source
> code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in
> either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel,
> and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
> component itself accompanies the executable. "
>
> In my reading in no way does this preclude the distribution of obfuscated
> code - what it is trying to prevent is the distribution of compiled object
> files without the corresponding source code to allow modifications to be
> made.
>
> As JS and PHP are always distributed in source form as part of the
> WordPress download I don't see how we are violating the licence.
>
> Would you consider it a licence violation if we were to ship WordPress
> without the include .dev.js files so as to decrease the download size and
> make automatic upgrades use less memory?
>
> Cheers
> --
> Peter Westwood
> http://blog.ftwr.co.uk | http://westi.wordpress.com
> C53C F8FC 8796 8508 88D6 C950 54F4 5DCD A834 01C5
>
> _______________________________________________
> wp-hackers mailing list
> wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers
>



-- 
Jeff Jason II