Re: New version of articulate available

[Graham Percival]

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.

>     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?

> > Graham> Isn't that precisely the question?  You wrote: "It is not even
> > Graham> clear that Peter can release/distribute it under GPL version
> > Graham> 2.0 unless it will work unmodified with a version of Lilypond
> > Graham> released under GPL version 2.0"
> >
> > It will so work.  It was written to use the public interfaces provided
> > by version 2.12, which is GPL version 2.0.
> 
> If it is written using _public_ interfaces, it can be reasonably
> considered an independent work and distributed separately.

As I claim.

> But making
> it an _integral_ part of Lilypond will not be feasible.

You're talking about moving the code into a C++ performer, right?

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

> 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.

[1] with that slight quibble about the 4-6 lines of scheme code
that he copied from FeatherDurations or whatever, which I believe
isn't even called at the moment.  Those should be removed or
rewritten.

> That's preaching to the choir.  Tell your congressman.

Neither Peter nor I have congressmen.

Cheers,
- Graham