The GPL does not taint anything.
What do you prefer to call what it does to anything it is compiled with?
What do you prefer to call what it does to anything it is compiled with?
BTW: I think you answered a different question than the one I asked.
I am thankful for GPL and GPL-ed sw. I just find some of the advocacy for it a bit annoying.
Because there's an unfortunate kernel of truth to it?
From the standpoint of people using any other license, copyleft code (intentionally) causes an undesirable side effect of attaching its license terms to your code base if the slightest bit of it is merged in, whether through a developer's carelessness, ignorance, or otherwise. And the effects may not be noticed for quite some time. It takes vigilance and developer education to prevent this from happening. One struggles to think of a term that doesn't have pejorative connotations to describe this effect. I have yet to see anyone suggest a credible alternative.
(And please don't suggest "protective"; that's so transparently doublespeak that it's surprising that it ever took off. Things that are protective don't just reach out and latch onto other things they are accidentally brought into contact with.)
EDIT: minor rewording for clarity
It doesn't reach out, it grants you a ton of rights in exchange for you preserving those rights downstrea. in projects you use it in.
If that is not a good tradeoff for you, don't use it.
You make it sound like an active, infectious agent.
There's some just don't know, some take the attitude "it's on the net so I can use it" and then I've encountered people who are scared into going to the other extreme - linux is GPL therefore we have to release our software product on BSD if we don't want to open source the whole thing!
Some of the big corporates are quite hot on education in this area, but their actual FOSS-related proceses can be byzantine and weird.
Basically: "if you compile GPL-licensed sw with your code the GPL-ed code <something something> so your code becomes GPL-licensed as well."
IF you release your code it will be in violation of the GPL and you can: unpublish the release, or switch to a different non-GPL codebase, or reimplement the GPL part, or ask the authors to give you a dispensation or switch your code to GPL.
IF you don't release it and use the code internally you are fine.
It's at least 6 options, only one of which requires licensing your code as GPL.
And it's really just that. It doesn't force any license on your code. You can still release your individual contributions under a BSD-style license[1]. The one thing you can't do is placing additional restrictions onto your peers.
[1] The combined work may be effectively distributable only under GPL-like terms, of course.
The AGPL on the other hand, now that really is a hated licence: https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/
>WARNING: Code licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) MAY NOT be used at Google.
>Using AGPL software requires that anything it links to must also be licensed under the AGPL. Even if you think you aren’t linking to anything important, it still presents a huge risk to Google because of how integrated much of our code is. The risks heavily outweigh the benefits.
>Do not attempt to check AGPL-licensed code into google3 or use it in a Google product in any way.
>Do not install AGPL-licensed programs on your workstation, Google-issued laptop, or Google-issued phone without explicit authorization from the Open Source Programs Office.