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Viral GPL Misconceptions Elegantly Explained

Posted by simoniker on from the outbreak-of-gnu dept.

Scot W. Stevenson writes "Our favorite paralegal Pamela Jones of Groklaw has put together a short FUD-killer on the General Public License that explains why you can't lose your proprietary code if you inadvertently incorporate GPL code. This is not the only text of its kind, but it is so well explained that you might want to bookmark the page for future reference."

1 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. The real problems with the GPL by ikewillis · · Score: 5, Interesting
    1. The language is, in many places, ambigouous and misleading. The concept of a derived work is not explicitly defined, nor has specific attention been paid to dynamic versus static linking.
    2. No definitive interpretation by a court has been made. This article is completely the interpretation of a single individual and its relevancy to a definitive interpretation within a courtroom setting is dubious at best. There exists Linus's interpretation of this matter, which would preclude the possibility of binary only kernel drivers, but shouldn't this carry over to any code which utilizes system calls in Linux? Wouldn't such code be considered a derived work and be forced to be distributed under the terms of the GPL? Consequently, it doesn't seem possible for glibc to legally be LGPL, as it utilizes the Linux system call table and is consequently a derived work of the GPL'd Linux kernel. This opens up a whole nasty can of worms...
    3. The GPL has many bizarre concessions and terms, such as requiring those who distribute GPL software to distribute it by mail at anyone's request, charging only the cost of media.