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bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files
From: |
Phillip Lord |
Subject: |
bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files |
Date: |
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 15:57:08 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.1.91 (gnu/linux) |
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> > I find myself in the bizarre position of suggesting that you haven't
> > read the GPL properly...
>
> Before asserting that someone experienced is totally confused,
> I suggest you double-check your own reasoning.
It was just a light-hearted aside. I did say "bizarre", and didn't say
"totally confused".
> > The "source" files in question are no longer distributed.
>
> It is premature to put quotes around "source". You are arguing that
> we have the option of making something else the real source code,
> but we haven't done so yet. At present, those files are the source code.
>
> You say they are "no longer distributed". That can't be entirely true,
> since the GNU Project does still distribute them.
Indeed. They are distributed as part of Emacs, but not available from
their referenced source.
> Would you please lay out the facts that you are talking about?
> Pressuring for a particular decision is not being helpful.
> Please show us the situation clearly so we can see what is right to do.
Yes. A file (CTLau.html) which looks like this....
<html>
<head>
<title>CTLau : Hanzi input by Cantonese transcription (Lau style)
</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=gb2312">
</head>
<body bgcolor=#ffc0c0><pre>
#
# CTLau.html : Hanzi (GB2312-80) input dictionary for Sidney Lau's
# (STUFF REMOVED)
# Revision History:
# This file was originally converted in 1993 from a hanzi input file
# based on Fung Fung Lee's Cantonese phonetic transcription scheme
# proposed in 1988 (http://umunhum.stanford.edu/~lee/chicomp/CPS.html).
# This file was released under the terms of GNU GPL on May 14, 2001.
#
#<hr>
A 阿啊鸦呀丫哑亚吖氩锕
AAI 埃挨嗌哎唉隘嗳
AAN 晏俺
(STUFF REMOVED)
</body>
</html>
Is reformated to look like this (CTLau.el):
;; Quail package ‘chinese-ctlau’
;; Generated by the command ‘miscdic-convert’
(STUFF REMOVED)
(quail-define-rules
("a" "阿啊鸦呀丫哑亚吖氩锕")
("aai" "埃挨嗌哎唉隘嗳")
("aan" "晏俺")
(STUFF REMOVED)
AFAICT, we cannot update CTLau.html from a downstream source any
longer. And either way, it has not been updated since 2001, except for a
change to formatted in the licence comments.
> > 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.
>
> In principle, that is a possible option. Whether it is a good idea
> is another question.
>
> There is no grave problem here. Let's see what Handa-san says
> about this technical question.
The reason that this came up is that the generation of CTLau.html has to
be performed by "bootstrap-emacs", as the lisp needs to be available
before "emacs" is dumped. Keeping the work performed by bootstrap-emacs
as simple as possible is a useful aim.
> > Unless you mean "an obligation" in some sense other than "because of the
> > GPL".
>
> Anyone distributing software has a moral obligation to distribute the
> real souce code.
I agree with this position, but I see no moral or ethical issue in
changing our minds about what the real source code is. I have raised a
technical question; I think it only needs a technical answer. If it is
going to cause any issues for maintainence of leim, then, of course,
it's a bad idea.
Phil
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Phillip Lord, 2017/01/13
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Richard Stallman, 2017/01/14
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Phillip Lord, 2017/01/16
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Richard Stallman, 2017/01/17
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files,
Phillip Lord <=
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Richard Stallman, 2017/01/18
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Phillip Lord, 2017/01/19
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Richard Stallman, 2017/01/19
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Phillip Lord, 2017/01/19
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Richard Stallman, 2017/01/21
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, handa, 2017/01/24
- bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files, Richard Stallman, 2017/01/24