"viral" (was RE: Licensing options for firmware)

[James W. Thompson, II]

Because the clause requires the propogation of the GPL licensing
regime for no really good reason. It is viral, to sugar coat it is the
ignorant thing to do. The GPL should do more like the Sleepycat and
require code release under reasonable terms. Heck, since the GPL has
no problem being verbose you could even elaborate on it for pages upon
pages and still not have to require that the GPL be the license used.

How else would you describe the forced propogation of a single license
like this clause induces? My best thoughts are viral, infectious,
perhaps compulsary would be more disarming, but the effect is still
the same: "Do what we say and do it our way or get sued!"

-James

On Apr 6, 2005 7:38 AM, Evan Prodromou <evan at bad.dynu.ca> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 21:01 -0700, Joel West wrote:
> 
> > Some restrictions (like the viral clauses of the GPL or LGPL) [...]
> 
> Oof. Is there a reason you use that awful term, "viral", instead of
> "copyleft"? Ignorance, hostility, or something else?
> 
> ~Evan
> 
> --
> Evan Prodromou
> evan at bad.dynu.ca
> 


-- 
James W. Thompson, II (New Orleans, LA)