GPL Infectiousness

[der.hans]

Am 30. Sep, 2002 schwätzte Michelle Lowman so:

> I think Bob is referring to the fact that proprietary developers won't
> use GPL'd libraries because then their code would be subject to the
> GPL.And there is where the "viral" nature of the GPL comes in. M$

It's not more viral than the licenses from the proprietary vendors. In fact,
less so because it doesn't 'taint' you. The original license for UNIX source
from AT&T prohibited people from ever working on similar projects.

> doesn't mind the BSD license at all because they can freely use BSD'd
> code without their own code being subject to the BSD license. The GPL
> gives them a rash because if they combine their own code with GPL'd
> code, their code becomes subject to the GPL.
>
> Of course, I'm approaching this subject from the point of view of a tech
> writer and teacher rather than a developer, so I may not understand all
> the details about how the GPL works in practice, but it seems to me that
> the advantage is not in that proprietary developers CAN'T use GPL'd
> libraries, but that they WON'T. Of course you can buy (or rent?!) code
> from anyone, and as you said, use it under the terms of their license,
> but the problem comes in when you combine their code with GPL'd code,
> and their license and the GPL are incompatible. Then you have to
> convince whoever owns the proprietary code to release it under the GPL,
> or you can't release it at all.

Or you have to convince the owner of the GPLd code to let you use it under a
different license.

The proprietary vendors are trying to make it look like the GPL is
unreasonable when it's actually their licenses that are unreasonable. We
shoudn't be defending the GPL, they should be defending their practices.

Don't worry. I know you're in favor of Free Software. We can still learn
through discussing the topic, though.

ciao,

der.hans
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