msk...@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca writes: > On Fri, 6 Oct 2023, Werner LEMBERG wrote: > >> Thanks. I think it's ghostscript – there are no pre-built packages >> available either. While LilyPond doesn't link to it in normal builds, >> gs is needed for converting LilyPond's EPS output files to PDF. In >> other words, a MacPorts user still needs a compiler... > > If LilyPond doesn't link to gs but only execs it, then gs having an > incompatible version of GPL from LilyPond's version should not render > either binary undistributable, even together. GNU's position seems to > be that exec is a boundary across which it's not necessary for > licenses to be compatible.
GNU has no position, the FSF has. And it is sort of fuzzier: after all, dynamic libraries are also some kind of boundary. The principal differentiation is whether that boundary is artificial and the separate parts operate as a single unseparable unit. Ghostscript works with PostScript as a generic interface, it has lots of other uses, and LilyPond can work without using Ghostscript (it can produce PostScript files instead). I think that puts enough of a conceptual barrier between the two. Using the Ghostscript API would be different: I'd expect distributions to avoid that without explicit non-trivial user action. > Of course, whether MacPorts's automated determination of > distributability can capture this distinction, is another question. -- David Kastrup
