Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 24.08.2013 um 13:26 schrieb Bob Ham:
> 
> There is a reason for stipulating this.  Having to convert a work into a
> format suitable for making modifications represents a barrier.  It's a
> barrier to freedom.  It can be abused.

I don't understand that. The reason of open source is that you can rebuild
the system if the original designer decides not to continue and maintain
the system. For that you need the sources in some open way.

A different story is that FSF did start some collaborative projects based
on the GPL which of course needs people to be able to work on a common
system as a team.

Back to the GTA04, you have all you need in PDF format, i.e. you can
maintain your GTA04 in any way you like. You are absolutely free to
start to rebuild it from scratch or modify it. Nobody is stopping you from
doing it. The licence for the PDF documents permits you to do it.

So what is missing? I only see the "convenience" aspect.

And regarding barriers, I rather think that asking people to install and
learn the same schematics capture system that we use is an increased
barrier over the current situation.

The current mode of collaboration is that every e-mail telling some change
request in plain language is welcome and will be translated to the required
data format to produce a new PDF. This work is done by us - but what is
bad about that? Only that you can't do it. I don't consider that as a problem.
Neither for you nor for me.

And as written somewhere else, there have been several proposals from
the community that were included in the GTA04A3, A4 and A5 designs.
So I still don't get the goal you are arguing for and how it improves the
acceptance of the GTA04.

BR,
Nikolaus