Re: Proprietary Software term

[David Kastrup]

Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:

> Am 18. August 2018 13:08:19 MESZ schrieb DK:
>>Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> We've talked about the issue over and over again, but how do we
>>> call it when using proprietary software prevents us from changing
>>> the tools to work with our data/documents? (Well, actually the same
>>> effect that prevents us to edit LilyPond scores with other
>>> programs, although that's not for license but only for practical
>>> reasons).
>>
>>It's not for "license reasons" with proprietary software either since
>>reading the same file format with a program written from scratch
>>would be perfectly fine.  Patents may intervene in strange cases from
>>providing such a program, but copyright generally does.

Generally does _not_.  Sorry.

> Indeed, that wasn't expressed too well. What I meant is that
> CodaMusic's policy to use binary non-released (for some time even
> encrypted) file formats strongly discouraged anyone to make a program
> use these files.

That's more than just lock-in.  Don't know a good expression, but that's
more like locked-away (don't know a good expression for it) since the
format is designed to keep the user from being able to access his own
information (and/or that of others).  In my book, that's a no-no since
it renders archiving worthless.

> In LilyPond's case it's "only" the sheer size of the task.

Let's hope that we get around to doing it eventually.

-- 
David Kastrup