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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

It's no more dangerous than proprietary software in that regard. Proprietary software virally infects any project that uses it, as well as even people who merely look at it, which is why "clean-room" implementations require such careful hygiene to avoid being infected. Should we have an "MIT/BSD only" policy for HN links, and call out any links to dangerous proprietary code?

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What do you mean by "proprietary software virally infects any project that uses it"? You're saying nonsense.

And yes, the GPLv3 is extremely dangerous, with its patent crap, and it's anti-tivoing clause. Moreso than any other attribute of software, proprietary or free, that I can think of. For example, just imagine how devastating it would be if one bit of GPLv3 software made its way onto iOS.

Edit: Thanks for the downvotes, guys. Yes, big shock, not everybody loves GPLv3, and some of us actually have legitimate reasons to do so.

Yes, the horror of an open ecosystem on iOS would hardly be bearable.

You do know that nobody forces you to use foreign code to earn your money?

Pretty much everybody in a commercial setting knows about licensing restrictions, so these warnings are useless.

If one bit of gpl3 code made it into iOS, it would be removed and minor damages would be paid. This is one case where the legal system is far more sane than the breathless nightmares of coders.

That's not even remotely true. Go look up what the anti-tivoing clause in the GPLv3 actually means, and think about what effect that would have on iOS.

Proprietary code has the EXACT same copyright protection as gpl3. The licensing differences are wholly irrelevant if the user never agrees to the license.

Distribution in any fashion of any GPLv3 code counts as implicit acceptance of the license, which kicks in all the nasty stuff in there, including the virality of it (so the rest of your code now must be GPLv3), the anti-tivoing clause, the patent crap, etc.

Licenses are not contracts. Although it is not nessasary for the GPL to make that point explicitly clear, it does:

You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11).

In other words, if they violate the anti-tivoing clause, then they loose the rights granted to them by the GPL, so they no longer have the right to use the software in their produce. In other words, the worst a license agreement can do is make you break copyright law.

>For example, just imagine how devastating it would be if one bit of GPLv3 software made its way onto iOS.

If that happens, I imagine Apple would simply commit copyright infringement on the GPLv3`ed code. The same way that they would commit copyright infringment if they include any code which they do not have the rights to.

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