Re: binary data in source trees (was: GNU Coding Standards, automake, and the recent xz-utils backdoor)

[Jacob Bachmeyer]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > The issue seems to be releases containing binary data for unit tests, 
>   > instead of source or scripts to generate that data.  In this case, that 
>   > binary data was used to smuggle in heavily obfuscated object code.
>
> If this is the crucial point, we could put in the coding standards
> (or the maintainers' guide) not to do this.

On another branch of this discussion, Zack Weinberg noted that binary 
test data may be unavoidable in some cases.  (A base64 blob or hex dump 
may as well be a binary blob.)  Further, manuals often contain images, 
some of which may be in binary formats, such as PNG.  To take this all 
the way, we would have to require that all documentation graphics be 
generated from readable sources.  I know TikZ exists but am unsure how 
well it could be integrated into Texinfo, for example.


-- Jacob