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Comment by cpg | Hacker News Reader

OK, it seems like it may have been an oversight (as in, not to hide anything or subvert someone else). The (over-)reaction by RMS may be a bit too harsh, when a simple README or something might suffice.

Every church has to have its pope, though ...

Edit: a simple README to point the issue in older tarballs might suffice -- though the issue has to be fixed going forward, no question on that.

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"[..]We are, in essence, distributing binary blobs with Emacs" (Chong Yidong)

Note the "in essence". They are not actually distributing binary blobs, they are distributing generated code made with a parser generator which they are not distributing, and they argue that this is equivalent of distributing binary code for all practical purposes, as the user "may neither fix nor extend the existing functionality."

That post says they have to delete the old versions, but... If what you've said it true, they could just distribute the parser generator, or something that does the same job.

It's not unfixable.

The post clearly says they have to add the source or delete them.

The issue is not that they aren't distributing the parser generator, it's that they're not distributing the grammars that are the input to the generator.

The problem here is not just that they are violating the GPL. The problem is that due to the GPL anyone who distributed or distributes one of the affected Emacs versions is violating the GPL.

A simple README doesn't solve this issue.

Technically, it's only everyone but GNU that (re)distributes emacs with the generated code that violate GPL, so you are correct in not calling that particular part a problem.

A README isn't source distribution (though I suppose it would constitute a "written offer to provide source", which is allowable under the GPL). And it can't be retroactively applied to versions of emacs that are already distributed.

The goof here isn't that emacs is somehow "polluted" going forward; everyone agrees that this is easy to fix. The problem is that existing versions of emacs were/are distributed in a form that is a violation of its own license.

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