Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

>> Second, I don't think "virus" is a good analogy. I at least can't come
>> up with a good relationship between the major characteristics of GPL
>> code and a virus.
> 
> Seen from a company perspective (not from an individual programmer or
> program manager) it definitely has viral properties.

A company -- just like an individual -- can make an informed and conscious
decision to use or not to use GPL code. (And they definitely should make
that decision consciously, and not only download code from the net, use it
and the afterwards, when they don't want to publish their code, complain
that it's GPL code...)  

That doesn't sound "viral" to me. I haven't heard of anybody consciously
downloading a virus to infect her network.
 
>> Calling the GPL license a virus in a code that's protected by it (the
>> cost is that derived works have to be GPL'ed) is not different from
>> calling the dependency of Windows software on the Windows OS a virus
> 
> I would not object to that either.

Here it starts not making sense to me. This means (if I understand you
correctly) that pretty much every software is a virus, in that it creates
dependencies, that may create other dependencies... I wouldn't object to
the viewpoint, but it seems then useless, as it's no distinction anymore.
If I apply this, every software has a "viral" quality, not only GPL
software, other open source software, or closed source software -- simply
/every/ software. And not only software...

Gerhard

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