At 01:13 PM 11/29/01 -0600, John Hasler wrote: >csj writes: >> We rarely get to see the source code for a novel. > >Just as well, since none of us have the compiler anyway. > >> The source for a novel is the writer's draft or revision marks. > >When you release Free Software do you include all your "drafts" and >"revision marks" with the source? > >You need source code in order to be able to produce derivatives of a >program because compilation is a one-way hash. When you've got a >human-readable copy of a novel you have everything you need to be able to >produce derivatives. >-- >John Hasler >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler) >Dancing Horse Hill >Elmwood, WI
At the risk of wandering WAAYY out into metaphysics... surely the novel is a binary? it can't be usefully modified and can only be read as-is. It'd have to be made available as a text file (or maybe printed with double spacing to allow annotation?) to be usefull Otherwise to make use of it you'd have to either re-type it, or scan and OCR which sounds analogous to de-compiling a binary to me.
