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

[Ian Lance Taylor]

Joel West <svosrp at gmail.com> writes:

> 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).

This is a false analogy.  Viruses propagate by themselves.  The GPL
does not.  If nobody chooses to use the GPL, it will not be used.  If
nobody chooses to catch a cold, people will still catch colds.

Ian