David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> writes: > 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.
Post Scriptum: of course in this case, the relevant interpretation (in terms of whether one lands before court) would be that of Artifex as the Ghostscript copyright holder. I don't think that they'd go to court over LilyPond using a separately distributed Ghostscript that is not just usable by LilyPond. The other way round we are talking about LilyPond copyright holders going to court because of Ghostscript being called by LilyPond. This would only make sense for copyright holders before the time that Ghostscript became a fixture for graphics processing and TeX was used instead, so we are talking about copyright holders from LilyPond version 1.x and earlier. At that time, however, LilyPond was licensed under GPLv2+. It just doesn't come together as something that I can see as a viable threat scenario. -- David Kastrup
