Scripsit Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> > On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 09:24:21AM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > We're not talking about music; we're talking about *sound > > recordings*.=20 > Actually, we're just talking about embedding sound in a GNU FDL document. > Music, in case you hadn't noticed, is one form sound takes. But not the only one. > > All the XML scores in the world will not allow me to > > recreate a particular sound recording (made with real live musicians, > > in the case it contains music). Therefore, an XML score is not > > source. > All the C code in the world won't let you recreate the last build I did > either, unless I also give you the compiler I used. Big deal. If one need to use a compiler that only you have, I'd say that your binary is not free. > > > Samples and recordings are more difficult, mainly because the concept of > > > "revision" doesn't really exist, per se. One possibility is just to do > > > a hex dump -- it's as straightforwardly editable with a hex editor as > > > _anything_ is, after all > > Any opaque format is straightforwardly editable with a hex editor. > Well, no, it's not. It was your claim that sound could be edited in hex form. If that is true, then anything else can be similarly "edited" in hex form. > The question is what changes do you want to make. Nowhere in the GFDL does it say that it is OK for a transparent format to make only certain kinds of changes possible. > If you want to change the location of two icons in a program, I don't > think you're going to be able to do that if I give you a hexdump of an > ELF executable. And if you want to change the words of a poem read alouf, I don't think you're going to be able to do that if I give you a hexdump of a PCM file. > OTOH, I don't think there are any "revisions" you can make to any > sound file that you can't also make with a text editor to a suitable > text dump of a WAV file. My point is exactly that *no* way of editing sound files will allow me to do the kind of changes we normally require for freedom. > > Only for certain kinds of changes. That's not enough. > Really? How do you remove all the buffer overflows from mozilla with > a text editor? A lot of analysis, study, and tedious editing, no? Yes, but it's possible in principle. > Same thing with most of the edits you want to do to a sound file. No, they are not possible in principle. > > Not without losing any semblance of sensible prosody. > Again, so what? So I cannot reasonably make trivial edits and have results that have reasonable quality. > The sorts of revisions you can do with sound are fundamentally > limited; Exactly. Therefore, sound is opaque no matter what format it is in. > That's completely irrelevant too: the question that's answering is whether > the formats specifically designed to thwart modifications. The "thwart modifications" language in the GFDL applies only to unconventional uses of otherwise transparent formats. The definition of transparency is; | A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, | represented in a format whose specification is available to the | general public, that is suitable for revising the document | straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed | of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely | available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text | formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats | suitable for input to text formatters. I maintain that this effectively excludes any conceivable sound format. > > If it is not possible to license sound under GFDL (which I believe it > > is not), then the GFDL says that I must not make a modification of > > the work that consists of reading it aloud on a sound recording. I > > think that's quite easily non-free. > That's wrong too: that would merely be an opaque copy which is entirely > allowable, as long as you distribute a transparent copy as well. I *cannot* distribute a transparent copy of my spoken performance, because no such copy is possible, as argued above. -- Henning Makholm "Al lykken er i ét ord: Overvægtig!"
