Re: Licensing and custom lines

[Carl Sorensen]

 

 

From: Valentin Petzel <valentin@petzel.at>
Date: Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 8:42 AM
To: Carl Sorensen <c_sorensen@byu.edu>
Cc: Charlie Boilley <boilley.c@outlook.com>, "lilypond-user@gnu.org" <lilypond-user@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing and custom lines

 

Hello Carl,
in fact using proprietory Software would be worse, as with these you usually have no license at all for redistributing the software or derivates. So basically it would illegal to publish anything created with such software under any circumstances, unless you are specifically licensed to do so.

 

You do not need a license to distribute works created using the software.  They are not considered “derivative works”.  Karsten (in his original post) claimed that “non-source-forms” in the GPL applied to works created using the software, which is an interpretation I have never used anybody else make.

 

The licenses for proprietary software don’t include any special requirements on “non-source-forms”, because all that exists is the non-source form of the program as distributed.  And the license terms prevent all distribution (and usually disassembly, reverse engineering, etc.) of the licensed materials, but mention no restrictions on the output created using the program.

 

Thanks,

Carl

 

P.S. I agree it’s worse to use proprietary software, but not because it creates more onerous licensing terms.  IMO, both proprietary licenses and the GPL are equivalent in their effect on the licensing of objects created by using the programs: they have no effect on the output.  But Karsten disagrees with that assertion; I think it’s a straw man argument.