Re: RFC: stop doing "grand replace" updates to copyright years

[Werner LEMBERG]

> An individual source file is an individual work.

I have almost stopped reading here – this assumption is simply
incorrect.  Right now, there are 6322 files which in total represent
GNU LilyPond.

> What happens if I decide to add a file under a BSD licence?

Code contributed to GNU LilyPond will *always* be under the GPL.  You
can't change the license afterwards.  This is one of the central
mantras of the GPL and prevents malicious people or companies from
severely disabling a software project.  What is possible, however, is
that you add another license to your contributed code.  What is also
possible is that you decide that a future, different version (that
sufficiently deviates from the contributed code) gets another,
possibly incompatible license.  However, you cannot revoke the already
contributed code.

> You yourself said "The GPL is used for licensing works _as_ _a_
> _whole_", that "whole", legally BEING THE BINARY.

This is also an incorrect assumption.

> Otherwise the GPL truly would be viral, as detractors like to claim,
> seizing ownership of works that their creators explicitly did NOT
> place under the GPL.

Please, PLEASE get educated what the GPL does and does not.

> The GPL does not (no free licence does) give you the permission to
> alter someone else's licence. That includes altering the copyright
> notice.

This is again incorrect.  A copyright notice and a license a two
completely different things.


    Werner