Zitat von Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakel...@webdrake.net>:
Hello all,
A question which has come up, and where I'm not sure what the answer or
intention is.
Lilypond is licensed under the GPL and reading through the license file, I
didn't come across any granted exceptions (IIRC the fonts have an
exception for
embedding them into a document).
So, how does this affect things when e.g. you \include a file in
your personal
Lilypond project? While I can't see it affecting distribution of a
PDF or other
graphical version of the score produced, the lack of an exception
surely means
that any .ly file distributed would be obliged to be released under
the GPL or a
compatible license. (For example, english.ly is explicitly licensed under
GPLv3+ without any exception. Yes, I know that these days you should use
\language "english", but that's beside the point.)
I was sure this must have been discussed previously, but cannot find
anything in
past mailing list discussions. So can anyone advise on whether this
was indeed
discussed before -- and if so, what were the conclusions?
I can't imagine it's intentional that Lilypond copyleft should
extend so far as
the .ly files of scores created by users, but as things stand I'm
concerned that
this may be the strict letter of the licensing. I'd welcome being pointed to
obvious reasons why I'm wrong.
Thanks & best wishes,
-- Joe
I think there is one thing this discussion proves impressively: Things
are much less non-ambiguous than most of the participants assume.
If we can't find an agreement on how the license under which LilyPond
is distributed affects the use of LilyPond it is very clear that we
need some _qualified_ input.
So I suggest that Joe makes a draft for an email requesting such
input, the most important aspects being:
- how does the use of the GPL affect the use of its functions,
- given the complication of .ly files being a hybrid of user document
and source code.
The question of licensing a library that is separate from the LilyPond
distribution (which was the original motive for this questions) is
basically independent from that.
Best
Urs
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