> The Free Software Foundation considers obfuscated JavaScript blobs to be unfree, even though they are source code. As long as we're being whiny hackers, why not go the extra mile and declare all unreadable code unfree? Where exactly would you draw the line here?
The FSF says it's the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it", and includes all the source needed to "generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities."
That line says Arthur Style is just fine, as that is Authur's preferred form.
> People will often claim that since X is Free and Open Source Software, every user of X is enabled to hack on it and bend it to their will.
They are also enabled to find someone else to hack on it, or who have hacked on it. We see people doing this with Linux, Chromium, LLVM, and VS Code.
Very long ago, I used interactive assemblers to write code, and saved only the binary. Working on the code meant disassembling the binary code and using the interactive assembler to patch over it. That would count as source code, because I, the original developer, had no special advantage in working on that code.
Now, speaking of original developers, the copyright holders who produce Javascript blobs are perfectly in their right to put a copyleft on those blobs and call them free software, even though they are not in the form in which those developers work on them. That's the same way they are free to dual license it, and all that.
The GPL imposes are restriction on the downstream redistributor not to convert the work into one that is hard to modify.
If you receive some Javascript code that is GPLed, you may not then modify it and redistribute that in obfuscated form without the matching source.
There is probably a gray area there. Say you take a copylefted work, and fork it. In your fork, you permanently translate it to some other language and work on it in that language. That language happens to look obfuscated to people. (Perhaps it is minified Javascript, which you work on that way, and not by manipulating undistributed code). You're not really doing anything wrong; that is your preferred way of working on it that you're sharing via your fork. There are instructions on how to use it and a documentation of your development process which you're honestly following.
The FSF says it's the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it", and includes all the source needed to "generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities."
That line says Arthur Style is just fine, as that is Authur's preferred form.
> People will often claim that since X is Free and Open Source Software, every user of X is enabled to hack on it and bend it to their will.
They are also enabled to find someone else to hack on it, or who have hacked on it. We see people doing this with Linux, Chromium, LLVM, and VS Code.