On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 02:13:54PM -0500, Stephen Gallagher wrote: > 1) Do we require that the original data used to generate this code is > included in the SRPM? Yes. This seems like a widely accepted principle in the free software world. eg. The GNU GPL contains this phrase: "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." I assume that the generated code would not be the preferred form in most cases. > 2) Do we require that whatever tools are necessary to generate this > code is packaged in Fedora (with all the legal and policy requirements > that this implies)? Be nice, but surely not an absolute requirement. But ... > If we do not, do we require that the code used by upstream is free > software? There's a bit of ambiguity in the word "code". I think there are two cases: (a) proprietary input --> proprietary generator --> ?? generated code (b) free input --> proprietary generator --> free generated code In case (a) it seems doubtful the generated code could really be free software. Case (b) is the tricky one. There's some work going on to add FPGAs as a service to the Cloud, and I wonder if we'll need an exception for FPGA netlists and stuff like that, since the tooling to create those is crazy proprietary. The inputs (Verilog/VHDL code) can be free software. The problem is it's impossible to prove that the binary I give you was generated from the VHDL input, and if you want to rebuild it you'll need to install some completely proprietary design tool that you may even have to pay $$$ for. > 3) Do we require that building in Fedora always requires regeneration > of this code from the original data? Nice to have but not an absolute requirement. Maybe we can just ask that packagers document in the spec file how to regenerate the generated files. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com Fedora Windows cross-compiler. Compile Windows programs, test, and build Windows installers. Over 100 libraries supported. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW -- devel mailing list devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
