The GPL will soon infect the whole galaxy.
Just checked the ebook out from my library to read this weekend. Thanks!
In this case, the software you've written to extend the GPL, is not "infected" by it.
It does not REQUIRE you to use only GPL, it requires you to make it AVAILABLE under GPL.
At least with GPLv2
Recently in the UK we have pundits talking about migrants as "infection vectors". This dehumanisation of humans coincides with the government illegally and immorally banning asylum seekers.
People are entitled to opinions, but we're entitled to call out negative ones.
Nope.
I said "`Infect` accurately describes a particular view of GPL."
This is true, and it says nothing about that point of view being neutral. In fact, quite the opposite.
Maybe I should have said 'legitimate'.
Basically, I disagree with your prior indignation.
To say I was thinking it was about actual arguments the whole time
>I feel X is the solution to Y!
>No! Z is clearly the solution to Y.
Do you really not study that in school ? This is scary
But then, I long for the end of individuality, which may not be your opinion. :-)
1. As far as what I've seen reported.
Claiming that the GPL infects software is very much one of those cases. Worse yet, it is an inaccurate statement since the GPL does not infect software. The most you can say is that some people choose not to modify, extend, or link to GPL software since they do not want the apply the terms of the GPL to their own work. That is a legitimate concern. Implying that the use of GPL software along side proprietary software somehow infects the proprietary software is intended to set up a negative connotation that has no basis in reality.
At any rate it is a rather negative word but I don't think it's fair to say that "infect" is a mis-categorization of the behavior of the GPL. And all this from someone who does personally appreciate MIT licenses more but is quite pro-GPL licensing on code.
The GPL does not "aggressively applies itself to full code bases that adopt it", that sentence is even completely meaningless. I can't even find the beginning of what you wanted to convey regardless of the side I attempt to take it. If a "code base adopts the GPL", then yes ok "it" adopts it, is there a problem? Why would anything attempt to "aggressively" apply the GPL licence to a code base that adopted the GPL? If it is rather than the GPL aggressively applies itself up to the point code bases that adopt it are fully converted to it but were not before, then that still makes no sense obviously because 1. a license is not sentient and won't attempt to aggressively do things by itself, but also 2. because code under other licences exists in code bases and systems containing code licensed under the GPL -- some under licences compatible with the GPL, other under licences not even compatible with the GPL.
To finish with that characterization, please provides the plenty of examples that should surely exists of projects that had to switch to the GPL against their "will" because of its supposed "infectious" or "cancerous" nature (not just dual licence or use some compatible licence, switching). And then please provides among this list, the list of the projects where it happened for another reason than lack of due diligence by the copyright holders of pieces of code supposedly "infected" or tainted with "cancer" against their will.
A final note: there at least 2 more ways (that are not open-sourcing) if somebody did a mistake and based a work on GPL licensed code but should not have done that because the conditions of the GPL are not appropriate for it: rebase the project on non-GPL licensed software; or stop it - or at least stop its distribution. Nobody will even manage to "retroactively" 100% force you to open-source proprietary software. And nobody can force you to change an open-source licensed code compatible with the GPL to the GPL itself, I don't even see what would be the point of asking to do that change.
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/100599, https://ffmpeg.org/legal.html
I would agree to the general point that using GPL'd code is entirely voluntary and using AGPL code is generally not an issue for most software projects but I disagree about it being a miscategorization. If I directly use 10 NPM packages and those pull in an additional 60 and one of those happens to pull in lpad which just happens to be updated from MIT to GPL licensing then I need to realize that and then either hackily re-wire the vendored code to not use lpad, possibly hardwire the packages file to force the pre-GPL version, or else drop the package that depends on it and the package that depends on that one and replace the whole component - this could hit multiple packages as well and all because of a single GPL license change.
I do dislike the connotations of infect but I think it's a fair term for a quality where one of a thing can cause hundreds of other things to suddenly become unusable, the GPL license can cause an exponential growth of packages unsuitable for general commercial use.