On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Roman Haefeli wrote:
b) A Pd patch is not easily turned into closed-source for technical reasons.
If you start from the Open-Source Definition and Free Software Definition, you will find that it's easy to step outside of the definition and that it doesn't have that much to do with whether the source code is "readable" or not.
A Pd Patch being readable is easy to turn into closed-source in legal ways : you just have to say « you don't have the right to distribute your modifications without our permission » and POOF!!, that's closed-source.
The Definitions above have been written by their respective organisms in order to peel off the layers of confusion between free-of-charge and freedom. It was about making a clear distinction between libre and almost-libre licenses of all kinds.
Compilation is not a form of encryption. What can be compiled can be decompiled, and while it's not the source anymore, it's a quite close relative of it, and what once was C code can be turned back into some similar C code. The main "encryption" being used, in practice, is the Optimiser... When you compile using gcc -O3, you get a much more complicated executable, which is also more distant from the source, than if you compile with gcc -O0.
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