| "the obligation to release the code under the GPL or not at all may be created and breached without knowledge of the person doing the release, but the license still has not attached to your code." This is the specific concern. The name of the license isn't what people call a virus: it's the obligation it attaches to things. "copyleft licenses are not at all special in this regard." Damage to most copyright violations is usually a fine/settlement, publishing source of the component (not app), removal, and so on. Not an obligation to loose one's own I.P. entirely. How many common licenses that cut/pasted code or included libraries might be affected by require redistribution of the application's source in full once it gets in a release? I thought it was a non-zero amount that was pretty low for most sources. Whereas, bumbling around on a site with GPL stuff drives it up singificantly specifically due to copyleft. " the few GPL violation cases (in the US, at least) that have gone to court and not been settled have resulted in fines and injunctions on distributing the GPL-dependent software." Now we're talking the actual results. The virus metaphor could be dropped if it was clear that this was the worst thing that could happen and that component would just have to be dropped/replaced with non-GPL stuff. Them doing it that way is certainly reassuring. Trick is, could they instead force app using it to go GPL? Guess it hinges on enforceability of that obligation. "The description of the GPL as "viral" was central to Microsoft's PR effort against Free Software in general and Linux in particular. So, its not really surprising to hear that from that source." From an ex-employee mocking that source's stance on GPL as paranoid, to be clear. Not surprising, though. |
Legal damage from GPL violations is generally fine and injunction against further release of the software with the GPL-bound components; release of application code under the GPL is typically something that happens, if at all, in a settlement, because the copyright owner would rather do that than pay damages and restructure the software not to depend on the GPL-bound component.