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

[Joichi Ito]

I think "viral" doesn't work. It has some very specific means in the
marketing world. Virality is basically the rate at which a product or meme
is propagated. If it is greater than one, it increases and a virality of
less than one slowly dies. You derive this number from the probability that
an infected person transmits to others, the number of people they transmit
to and the probability that a recipient becomes infected. Virality is a
variable and doesn't express very well the point I don't think.

At Creative Commons we use "share-alike". Maybe not the best word, but more
clear than "viral".

 - Joi