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

[Joel West]

On 3:31 PM -0400 4/6/05, Ian Lance Taylor doth scribe:
>"Scott Miller" <scott at opentrac.org> writes:
>
>> 'Viral' also implies
>> propagation, and 'reciprocal' doesn't.
>
>Yes, precisely, and the GPL doesn't propagate.  If the guy in the seat
>next to me on the plane sneezes, I get his viruses.  That's viral.
>That's not how the GPL works.  You have to invite the GPL into your
>code; it doesn't slip in against your wishes.

The GPL does propagate, through inheritance not casual contact. It analogous to the way a virus propagates at the cellular level (not the social level).

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus

	A virus makes use of existing enzymes and other molecules of
	a host cell to create more virus particles....
	Viruses have genes and show inheritance, but are reliant on
	host cells to produce new generations of viruses.

So call it "DNA-viral" not "HIV-viral" (which is obviously pejorative).

Joel