Re: Lilypond \include statements and the GPL

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 04/02/2013 07:07 PM, Urs Liska wrote:
> My suggestion would be to either have a sort of "lilypond license" or 
> (better) an explicit exception/clarification stating that the use of 
> functions defined in the LilyPond distribution (either implicit or through an 
> explicit include) do not require the user's LilyPond source files to be 
> distributed under the GPL. Maybe with an explanation that this is because 
> user's .ly files don't constitute source code from which an application can 
> be compiled.

New licenses are a bad idea, in general -- they tend to create confusion as well
as adding extra maintenance weight to the project.  An exception is not much
better inasmuch as it's a custom solution for one project.  It's far better to
find a licensing solution that is generic to the problem under consideration.

For the cases we're considering -- OLLib and the .ly files bundled with Lilypond
-- the _simplest_ method that I can see is to license them permissively.  Boost,
Apache, BSD/MIT/X11 and the GNU All-Permissive Licence are all options here
(potentially LGPL as well, but then issues may re-arise the moment someone
copy-pastes a function rather than getting it via \include).  But that's
bypassing the problem, rather than understanding it.

Yes, most of us dedicated to free software prefer copylefting as much as we can,
but there are times when the simplicity and flexibility of permissive licenses
outweighs any possible protection, especially (as here) where the likelihood of
anyone incorporating the work into a proprietary product is minuscule.