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

[Peter Westwood]

On 7 Jul 2010, at 18:50, Austin Matzko wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Peter Westwood
> <peter.westwood at ftwr.co.uk> wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> The FSF disagrees:
> 
>> Therefore, accessibility of source code is a necessary condition for free software. Obfuscated “source code” is not real source code and does not count as source code.[1]
> 
> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Peter Westwood
> <peter.westwood at ftwr.co.uk> wrote:
>> 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?
> 
> According to the GPL, you must make the original source available to
> the users.  The *dev.js files provide that through several means;
> there is no corresponding dev file available for the Matrix Easter Egg
> publicly.
> 
> [1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> 

Thank you for digging up what I couldn't find.

Personally, I still don't see a strong violation of the licence but neither do I have any issue with providing the source to the code as part of WordPress.

Cheers
-- 
Peter Westwood
http://blog.ftwr.co.uk | http://westi.wordpress.com
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