[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Please package virtualbox 4.2.2

[Michael Meskes]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 04:28:01PM +0100, Felix Geyer wrote:
> Removing the Open Watcom source files would be a GPL violation unless upstream
> explicitly adds a license to the generated assembler files.

IANAL but wouldn't the general license from the package kick in if there is no
license mentioned in a source file?

> It's pretty hard to believe that someone could write and maintain 15,000 lines
> of assembler code without a single comment.

But that's not the point. It's not about whether or not you believe them, it's
about what the license dictates.

> Sure, you can modify those assembler files but they are just a post-processed
> compiler output. That means in practice you can't modify it in a meaningful
> way.
> In fact the files say "Auto Generated source file. Do not edit." ;-)

Ok, for the sake of my argument let's assumed that line was removed. :)

> For example we would be unable to cherry-pick a BIOS fix from trunk.

Good point.

> With the same argument you could declare every disassembled binary that is built
> from high level language code as source code.

True. I'm not saying it is, I just wonder whether our restriction makes sense. 

Michael
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