Subject: bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files

From: [email-masked] (Phillip Lord)
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2017 18:17:39 +0000

Richard Stallman <[email-masked]> writes:
>   > These generation steps therefore complicate the build and the bootstrap
>   > process, as they generated before emacs is dumped. These steps could,
>   > therefore, be removed, with the currently generated .el files, becoming
>   > the source.
>
> We can't do that.  We have an obligation to distribute the real source.

Richard

I find myself in the bizarre position of suggesting that you haven't
read the GPL properly...

The "source" files in question are no longer distributed. So, any future
changes would have to come from the emacs developers. If we decided that
the .el files are the place to make these changes, then, they become the
"preferred form for modification". They become "the real source". I see
nothing in the GPL that prevents us from making this change.

I think the situation is analogous to "nato-alphabet" in
"morse.el". It's been taken from somewhere, but there is no source.
This is, of course, assuming that the source is copyrightable -- I have
my doubts. Looks like non-copyrightable data to me.

Unless you mean "an obligation" in some sense other than "because of the
GPL".

Phil