[pp.int.general] Why Free Software misses the point

[Alexandre Leray]

Hi,

On 05/15/2010 01:57 PM, Radosław Nadstawny wrote:
> I'd disagree. Terms like "human readable" and "machine readable" are
> inventions of lawyers and have little or no true meaning. Every program
> can be read and understood by human even in it's binary form. It just
> requires some skills. Sure, binary form is harder to comprehend than
> source code, but not impossible. Saying that computer program in binary
> form is not human readable is like saying that books in Chinese are not
> human readable, and because of this you can't compare them to books in
> English.
>    

Well, I agree, Chinese seems to be human readable since more than a 
billion of people speaks it. Do you know anyone that speaks fluently 
binary?

There are good reasons to write a book in a specific language, e.g. its 
author master that language, or it fits best the ideas expressed in that 
book. The same applies to programming languages. But I can't see any 
reason not to provide the source code except obfuscation.

Alexandre Leray