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Comment by wolfgke | Hacker News Reader

> You wouldn't have to. Without copyright, it seems to me that everything becomes copyleft by default.

No, without copyright, you cannot force the other party to give you access to the original source code.

BTW: There does not seem to exist an open source license that tries to emulate "no copyright"/"no IP". I.e. the license allows reverse engineering of all binaries derived from it virally, create modifications etc. and perhaps allows to use patents; but the license does not give you the right to demand access to the original source code.

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You argued upthread for reverse engineering. Binary is the source code, albeit in less convenient form. So maybe it wouldn't be strict copyleft, but close enough.

> Binary is the source code, albeit in less convenient form. So maybe it wouldn't be strict copyleft, but close enough.

Buddy, you must never have worked with a decompiler. To say nothing of the source file structure and comments that are lost along the way.

Instead we get tarball dumps with no change history.

Tarball dumps are OK. The GPL doesn't require change history. Although it can be quite helpful, it would be quite hard to define universally - what level of history is required? It could range from "every character typed" to "changes from the last public release", which is essentially what we have now.

GPL requires source code, which it defines as "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."

This prevents release of compilable-but-obfuscated code, or transpiler output, etc., or intentional removal of information required to build the software (though this clause causes GPL-compatibility issues with authenticated-build platforms).

The difference between sifting through tarball dumps and puzzling through binaries is essentially of degree, not kind. If there's a line to draw, perhaps it should have been at "intentional removal of information".

> Binary is the source code, albeit in less convenient form.

At least the copyleft defenders would not agree.

Employees can take source code with them when leaving a company and share it with others.

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