Re: LilyPond, LilyPond snippets and the GPL

[Carl Sorensen]

On 10/30/19, 5:13 PM, "Hans Åberg" <address@hidden> wrote:

    
    > On 30 Oct 2019, at 22:14, Carl Sorensen <address@hidden> wrote:
    > 
    >    The snippets should be LGPL for being includable under other licenses, 
I believe, because the processed part remains in the output, and thus 
copyrightable. Thus, they play the same role as the Bison skeleton file and GCC 
libraries.
    > 
    > What processed part remains in the output?
    
    If say somebody makes a snippet on how to make special type of clef, then 
that is copyrightable, just as a font and its glyphs are, it would seem, and 
that copyright will remain if copy-and-pasted into user code.

In the US, a typeface is not copyrightable.  But a computer program that makes 
a font or its glyphs is copyrightable.  I can see your argument here.  But if 
this argument is true, then it seems that all music set with LilyPond is GPL3,  
because the code for drawing beams, stems, staff lines, and straight flags is 
in LilyPond and is licensed under GPL3.  I find it very hard to believe that 
this is true.  And certainly, as far as the FSF is concerned, this is not true. 
 

Carl