Re: New version of articulate available

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 11:46:21AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Peter Chubb <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>> > I'll do it if I have to to get it merged, but i was hoping it wouldn't
>> > be necessary.
>> 
>> The GPLv3 states under 5 "Conveying modified source versions"
>
> I don't see articulate.ly as a modified source version, unless I
> misunderstand that term.

The whole Lilypond of tomorrow is a modified source version of today,
containting parts that various authors licensed as their personal
contribution under the GPLv3 to the Lilypond project.

And are you going to guarantee that articulate.ly is not going to be
changed by anybody but the original copyright holder?

How are you going to lock it down against modification?

>>     c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this
>>     License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.  This
>>     License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7
>>     additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts,
>>     regardless of how they are packaged.  This License gives no
>>     permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not
>>     invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
>
> To clarify, this only refers to something called "modofied source
> version", right?  I mean, the docs are under GPL FDL 1.3+; this
> paragraph doesn't somehow require that the docs are placed under
> GPLv3, right?

I don't claim that I understand the FSF stance with regard to mixing FDL
and GPL in Emacs (neither does Debian, by the way).  For Lilypond, the
manual is not as thoroughly hyperlinked and integrated into the
operation of the program, anyway.  Considering them separate makes more
sense here.

>> But making it an _integral_ part of Lilypond will not be feasible.
>
> You're talking about moving the code into a C++ performer, right?

Into _anything_ being run as an integral and substantial part of
Lilypond operation.

> I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about putting it in ly/, as
> an optional include.  That's not "integral".

The XEmacs project has gone through about 18 months of pain in order to
get their library code based migrated to GPLv3.  Those are mostly
distributed as separate packages (in the "package tree"), maintained in
a separate repository, that usually are just loaded by explicit demand
of the user.

The XEmacs project is not particularly sympathetic towards the goals and
opinions of the FSF and is most certainly not a GNU project.

>> And if you think this kind of nonsense is stifling industry and
>> innovation rather than furthering it, don't tell me.
>
> I think this is nonsense, not because of the copyright law (although
> that certainly *is* nonsense!), but because as far as I can see,
> articulate.ly only uses public interfaces[1], is not an integral part
> of lilypond, and thus all these concerns are not valid.

If we document it as an integral part of Lilypond and distribute it as
an integral part of Lilypond and distribute it as an integral part of
Lilypond, that seems like a bit of a stretch.  Apart from that, any
artificial measures designed to _not_ make it appear an integral part of
Lilypond are going to be a mistake and nuisance, because it or the
equivalent of its functionality certainly _should_ become an integral
part of Lilypond.

And shooting the messenger is not going to particularly help.  Neither
is postponing thinking about license problems.

I am maintainer of AUCTeX which is in a kind of legal limbo with regard
to copyright assignments (and consequently not fit for mainline Emacs
inclusion) because it has been decades in development before anybody
bothered thinking about that kind of stuff.  Some old contributors can't
be reached anymore, probably partly because they have died and their
legal heirs can't be reached or bothered.

It's a mess that is not, I repeat, not improving over time by ignoring
it.  The longer you ignore it, the more of a mess it becomes.

And bashing me is not going to change the situation one bit, even though
you appear to consider it a useful approach to the problem.

You don't need to rely on my judgment which you consider faulty.  You
can instead ask licensing at fsf.org which has the advantage that you
will actually be put in contact with lawyers with relevant experience.

Somewhat helpful may also be
<URL:http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/External-Libraries.html#External-Libraries>
which talks about the separate/integral issue in the context of
copyright assignments.  While the situation regarding articulate.ly is
not about assigning copyright, it still is about the question when and
when not a module is to be considered a part of the whole, in the legal
sense employed by the GPL.

-- 
David Kastrup