Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > So the problem here is that the source code of sample data is > more sample data. These samples might again require their > sources, and so the resulting tree could be enormous.
When distributing the source, you don't have to distribute the whole tree; you only have to distribute the leaf nodes and the Makefile or build script. If you are only using a one-second sample from a recording, then you might prefer to distribute just that one second as source, provided, of course, that the licence allows it. You can take an extract from a GPL work and distibute it under the GPL. Unfortunately, you can't do the same with a GFDL work if it has "invariant sections". > This is why I think that licenses of free music recordings should > not require the distribution of their source code at all. I tried to write a paragraph explaining why I think it should be all right to require source, the way the GPL defines source, but changed my mind while writing it. Take for example the case where you create D by digitalising an analogue recording A and then want to contribute D to a GPL work W. Anyone who wants to make an improved version of D would obviously like to have access to A, so A is clearly source, but you can't include the original analogue recording in the source distribution, so you have a problem. If you were to destroy A then you might be able to argue that D is now the source, but you might not want to destroy your valuable historic wax cylinder any more than you want to distribute it, whatever that means. You have a similar but less severe problem if A is a high-precision digital recording (with lots of random noise in the low bits) and D is a compressed version: clearly A is source of D, but the requirement for everyone who distributes D to keep a copy of A, or for written offers to be provided, is quite a burden. Perhaps it would be doable if some public sound archive could keep the original data and provide written offers to distributors for a reasonable charge. Public sound archives do exist, but I don't know whether they can provide written offers to satisfy the GPL requirement on distributors. Edmund
