Re: About the new "Gigsaw".

[Valentin Villenave]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 12:05 AM, Philippe Hezaine
<address@hidden> wrote:
>>> 1) You changed a few of the midi.scm for the compile.
>>> 2) You delete (so easily) the header in the control track
>>> et voilà. Bye bye the GPL. You have a hijacked midi file.
>>> At least one quickly recognize a Lilypond's sheet music.
>>> But for its midi file? Especially for the Gigsaw and its potential?
>>> How the FSF or any Floss supporter can check the GPL?
>>> Nothing.

First of all, I'm not sure that a MIDI file made using your
GPL-licensed 'Gigsaw' application would automatically be protected by
the GPL. For example, it is perfectly okay to print proprietary scores
using LilyPond, or to print books using a GPL-licensed font.

The Gigsaw itself, however, could be "stolen" from you. But IMHO this
is a risk for *any* piece of software (either free or proprietary). As
you may know, a GPL violation is punished as severely as a "normal"
copyright violation: http://gpl-violations.org/

(Of course, this requires the perpetrator to get caught -- but then
again, the same problem goes for proprietary works.)

>>> At least nothing "rock solid" that i know. (Unless my post to
>>> LAU-user with the thread :Lilypond's midi output" put my finger on it?)
>>> Is this issue going in touch with the GPL? Again I don't know.
>>> Perhaps I'm too imaginative, paranoid or not enough deeply free?

Some personal thoughts:

- The minute you publish something (a program, a music score, a book
or a blog post), your work is at risk of being "stolen". There is
absolutely _no_ way of making sure that it won't happen. (No matter
how hard Apple, Sony &co have tried, with DRM technology etc.)

- Free licenses are (some kind of) an answer to that: by giving your
public several freedoms, you encourage them not to abuse your work.
It's a relationship made out of trust and respect.

- If an (illegal) proprietary version of your work is ever published
behind your back, either it will have zero success and it really
doesn't matter, or it will have some success and in that case there's
a good chance that you (or any LilyPonder who knows about you) will
eventually hear about it, and then this would allow you to take action
against that. (Besides, this would (a) demonstrate how good your
program is, (b) give you quite a bit of publicity :-)

So, while there's always a risk, I believe it's so minimal that you
have nothing to worry about.

Cheers,
Valentin