| |||||||||||||
Preferred form for whom?Preferred form for whom?Posted Mar 9, 2011 17:25 UTC (Wed) by pebolle (guest, #35204)In reply to: Preferred form for whom? by dwmw2 Parent article: Red Hat and the GPL
> And Red Hat's kernel engineers are a representative sample of the experts in this particular field. I think their preferences are exactly part of the requirement, aren't they?
Well, look at what the FSF says about Free Software [0]:
I'd say it's no coincidence the FSF only focuses on users here. It seems one of the FSF's goals is to eliminate the barriers between users and the other parties usually involved in software (ie, vendors and developers). The FSF goal is that everyone can be user, vendor and developer of the software they use (if they wish).
So if the discussion of the meaning of "preferred form" should go into this much detail - which I actually think it shouldn't - one should not focus on a very specific group, such as kernel developers, but at users in general. So then the question should be: what is the "preferred form" for, well, almost anyone using computers?
(Log in to post comments)
Preferred form for whom? Posted Mar 9, 2011 18:19 UTC (Wed) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] So then the question should be: what is the "preferred form" for, well, almost anyone using computers?If we accept your premise that we should concentrate on users rather than developers, then the answer is simple. The preferred form of source is no source at all; it just confuses them.
Preferred form for whom? Posted Mar 9, 2011 19:05 UTC (Wed) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link]
> If we accept your premise that we should concentrate on users rather than developers, then the answer is simple. The preferred form of source is no source at all; it just confuses them.
No, the answer is almost any reasonable form that allows the user to (at first) "study", (later) "change", and (perhaps, eventually) "improve" the software. (These terms are from the quote I used in my previous post.) The fact that source code will likely just confuse most people using computers (at first, I'd say) is no reason to concentrate on (in this case) kernel developers when interpreting "preferred form".
Preferred form for whom? Posted Mar 9, 2011 20:08 UTC (Wed) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] It's not just kernel developers. Absolutely anyone with any experience of open source software development will know that dealing with a modified version of an upstream project is painful if you just have a tarball. You absolutely need to see the changes.
|
|||||||||||||