> On 2018-08-07 04:03, David Kastrup wrote: > > ma...@masonhock.com writes: > > > >> Then it's a good thing that David shared his code as free (as in > >> freedom[1]) software, so that it can be modified for your unique use > >> case. > > > > What's relevant for this is mostly "in source of an interpreted > > language", since modifying and using code given to you for your own > > private use tends to be allowed by most copyright jurisdiction. The > > freedom of the GPL kicks in when you want to _share_ your modifications > > with others, for discussion, for integration into LilyPond, or for > > other > > purposes. > > > >> The modified file is attached, and example usage is below. > > > > Well, that kind of thing (_you_ modifying the copy and reposting on the > > list) definitely requires the actual freedom of the code. > > > > So what are the original terms? Looking at David's original GitHub > > page, I see "MIT license". The terms of the MIT license are quite > > permissive but contain > > > > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be > > included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. > > > > which hasn't happened here. So you are in breach of the license and > > the > > reference to "freedom" is a red herring. What's really involved here > > is > > that David is a nice guy unlikely to sue people reusing his code and > > you > > are relying on that. Now of course the _spirit_ of the license is > > "feel > > free to use it, I don't care" so that assumption is likely pretty good > > but that does not save you against David having a really bad day. > > > > And when talking about licenses, really bad days are what they are good > > for. A really bad day may involve bankruptcy and all your private > > assets being acquired by Microsoft. That kind of thing often involves > > a > > substantial change of mind of the new copyright owner. > > > > A license, as opposed to relying on people to stay nice, also protects > > you against such worst case scenarios. > > > > Also many (but not necessarily all) code pieces from David may be > > substantially derived from LilyPond code code licensed under the GPL. > > In that case, the derived code cannot be licensed under different > > conditions without being, in turn, in violation of the code it made use > > of.
Good grief :( I selected the MIT license because it's very common, and in the spirit of, as you write, "feel free to use it, I don't care." Seems I'm not the only one--I read this in the openlilylib repo (https://github.com/openlilylib/snippets/blob/master/LICENSE): "Since most of the snippets are separate entities, they can be licensed individially. There are no official rules on licensing (yet); We suggest that unless otherwise specified everything should be licensed under the MIT license as found at http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT. Any content of this repository that isn't explicitly licensed is implicitly licensed under the rules of this MIT license." Best, David N _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
