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List:       lilypond-user
Subject:    Re: Licensing and custom lines
From:       Valentin Petzel <valentin () petzel ! at>
Date:       2021-10-30 9:40:35
Message-ID: 729b9238-043e-4cfb-a406-e766ad93b2b1 () petzel ! at
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Yes, engravings *can* be protected by ip protection laws. But does not really matter. \
Karstens point is that the GPL applies to Lilypond code because he claims that an \
engraved score can be considered as a program compiled from the source file. But that \
is mostly just an analogy. PDF isn't even a full general purpose language (though PS \
would be). But even more: Usually the "compiled" PDF and the code in the source \
differ in functionality. We can have a scheme code snippet of any functionality in \
our code, but the resulting PDF won't have that functionality. So it is quite far \
stretched to view the generated PDF as a "program compiled from the Lilypond source". \
Rather the Lilypond source should be seen as some sort of document description \
language combined with Makefile like control commands.

The one exception of this is of course PS code, but not any piece of code falls unter \
protection laws. A simple PS draw command probably doesn't. So while it would \
technically possible to include PS commands that would fall under GPL terms there \
probably no reason for it. Also that code might still not even make it into the PDF \
in some equivalent way.

And of course these things do not matter if you distribute a printed form.

The only two problematic things I can see are: Some snippet might print something \
protected into the score, or missing permission to use the snippet (which only \
applies if the snippet is not licensed at all). But then probably one can argue that \
a piece of code posted on the internet implicitly permits you to use it internally.

Cheers,
Valentin


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