On Wed, 2002-06-12 at 20:55, Nick Phillips wrote: > No, it's because it's possible to make subtle changes to a document that > will *completely* alter its function, which is much harder (usually), > with software.
It is much easier for me to --- for example --- hide an exploitable
buffer overflow in Apache than it is to hide something in a document.
Remember, the GPL already requires me to make public what I changed. If
I secretly alter your document, and then redistribute that, I am
violating the GPL.
>
> It would for example be easy to take a Microsoft press release and make
> subtle changes which result in something which completely satirises MS.
Right. And once I put the GPL-required notice that I changed it on it,
so what?
> It would usually be much harder to make subtle changes to a program's
> source code in such a way as to cause it to behave in a manner diametrically
> opposed to the original author's intent.
No. Much easier, as I pointed out with Apache above. Security holes are
one very well known example, though they are usually mistakes. Ken
Thompson has a paper about trojaning the compiler ;-) See:
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
