Re: Video recording of LilyPond talk at Chemnitz

[David Kastrup]

Jeff Barnes <address@hidden> writes:

> I don't think that's necessarily applicable to Lily. The end product
> being distributed is paper (or perhaps a pdf file). I don't think the
> GPL extends to that, does it?

Of course copyright extends to paper, but not to programmatic output.
It would extend to embedded fonts, but IIRC, they are licensed
differently.  Or at least they would, if there were interest.

> Also, do I understand correctly that a company could make changes to
> the source code and use it without giving it back? They probably 
> should to be good citizens, but are they required to do so if they
> don't distribute LilyPond according to GPL? 

No distribution -> no restrictions.

> But most forward thinking publishing companies would give the source
> code back. After all, their core business isn't LilyPad, it's
> publishing.
>
> Somebody help me with my wrong thinking. :)

You don't want to help the competition.  I've been able to get paid for
writing bigfoot.sty (footnote magic) in the past while publishing it
under the GPL.  The corresponding troeltsch.cls actually creating the
document layout of the published series (Google for KGA Troeltsch) was
based on the hard work and mechanisms in bigfoot.sty and was
comparatively simple.  Maintainable by non-magicians, at least before
implementing "Registerhaltigkeit".  _This_ one was kept private.

In this case, my funds came from the editors, not the publishing houses.
So there was not much of a worry about competition anyway.

-- 
David Kastrup