4 ms·

Not a lawyer, but I did work for a short period for a company that was distributing a modified linux kernel and therefore had to release the source. In my time

Not a lawyer, but I did work for a short period for a company that was distributing a modified linux kernel and therefore had to release the source. In my time there, there were a lot of discussions (some involving lawyers) about whether (and how) we could reasonably obfuscate the source before releasing it. Not sure how those conversations ended since I left before they were done, but it seems it's not clear cut at this point.

akkartik 6y ago
dataflow's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019778#24025779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019778#24025779) seems to answer this, and https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5759/code-obfuscation-and-gpl3/5760#5760 https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5759/code-obf... elaborates: FOSS licenses require distributing the form you use to make modifications to your program. To do anything else opens one up to legal liability.
jlokier 6y ago
I struggle to imagine how this definition in the Linux kernel's license: > The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. can be seen as "not clear cut" with regard to whether obfuscated source code counts. It plainly rules out obfuscation. (Unless you genuinely prefer editing the obfuscated version. Which you provably don't if obfuscation is done just for release.)
- eredengrin 6y ago
  What is preventing a company from hiring a developer or two for very cheap to "work" on the obfuscated code, but not do any real work (or better yet, just bundle it into an existing job description of a qa member or a dev on some other team or something)? How would you prove in court that the devs "working" on the obfuscated version weren't the ones doing the work? It brings into question which version is actually preferred over the other, and how do you answer that? Based off number of commits or changes on the branches? Obfuscated version could easily be gamed to have more commits, and given that it's obfuscated, it might have even more individual changes just by default. I imagine there are some companies that think these questions are worth pondering.

akkartik 6y ago

dataflow's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019778#24025779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019778#24025779) seems to answer this, and https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5759/code-obfuscation-and-gpl3/5760#5760 https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5759/code-obf... elaborates: FOSS licenses require distributing the form you use to make modifications to your program. To do anything else opens one up to legal liability.

jlokier 6y ago

I struggle to imagine how this definition in the Linux kernel's license: > The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. can be seen as "not clear cut" with regard to whether obfuscated source code counts. It plainly rules out obfuscation. (Unless you genuinely prefer editing the obfuscated version. Which you provably don't if obfuscation is done just for release.)

eredengrin 6y ago
What is preventing a company from hiring a developer or two for very cheap to "work" on the obfuscated code, but not do any real work (or better yet, just bundle it into an existing job description of a qa member or a dev on some other team or something)? How would you prove in court that the devs "working" on the obfuscated version weren't the ones doing the work? It brings into question which version is actually preferred over the other, and how do you answer that? Based off number of commits or changes on the branches? Obfuscated version could easily be gamed to have more commits, and given that it's obfuscated, it might have even more individual changes just by default. I imagine there are some companies that think these questions are worth pondering.