On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 11:30:15AM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > 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.
You'd say that unless I give you a copy of the C compiler I wrote, the perfectly compliant ANSI C code I give you is not free? You'd insist on demanding a copy of my compiler, if I give you a binary that you cannot generate a byte-for-byte copy of with gcc? If so, that's utterly irrational and unreasonable. If not, you're unreasonably limiting the ways sound can be redistributed (it must be *exactly* the same, not merely the same bar production differences). > > > > 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. "It was your claim that C source code could be edited with a text editor. If that is true, then anything else can be similarly "edited" with a text editor." Apart from one matching your preconceptions, and the other not, is there any difference in the logical validity of those two comments? > > 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. You can make any changes with a hex editor to anything, the question is whether the changes are straightforward or not -- and some aren't. But likewise, many changes you'd make to a document or to source code with a text editor aren't straightforward either -- translation into Elvish, optimisation, converting a reference manual into a tutorial, rearranging sections to be more logical and coherent. Setting the bar at "every possible change must be able to be made in a straightforward and thoughtless manner" is thus not a reasonable interpretation of the GNU FDL's requirement; "the most common and basic changes must be able to be made in a straightforward and thoughtless manner" is, and, for sound, where the most basic edits you can make is addition and rearrangement, you can do that with a reasonably marked up WAV hex dump quite easily, in a text editor. > > 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. I've already given you an example of how you can change "Anthony is my name" to "is my name Anthony". I don't know what a PCM file looks like -- but the only requirements are being able to work out where the word breaks are, which requires either markup or consistent bit lengths for timing; and that there's no cross-frame dependencies. > > 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. That's nice, but you haven't done anything but repeatedly restate it. > > > 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. Yes, it's possible in principle to reconstruct source code from an ELF binary too. > > Same thing with most of the edits you want to do to a sound file. > No, they are not possible in principle. You're both wrong and insane. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``Dear Anthony Towns: [...] Congratulations -- you are now certified as a Red Hat Certified Engineer!''
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