One of the reasons GPL is such a good virus is that it is extremely seductive. It makes you want to contract it. This doesn't make it any less viral, quite the opposite in fact.
No it is not. If I include someone else's work in my own, it is only that part of the finished product that was made by them that is subject to their whim (assuming I didn't get a concise contract with them beforehand in which case I'd be clever enough to eliminate whim). My own work is unaffected.
If I issue a scientific report that contains an unlicensed Dilbert cartoon, I may get C&D'd and I may get sued/fined/jailed. Everything in that report, however, except for the Dilbert cartoon, has retained its original copyright (specifically, I have retained exclusive right of distribution) without being tainted in the slightest by my Dilbert copyright violation.
If Dilbert were GPL'd then what would happen is that the remainder of the report would also be GPL'd, drastically changing its legal status. I'd probably avoid jailtime though.
NO definition of a virus that I know of, talks about willfully accepting a virus into the host system
The definition of virus has nothing to do with whether it's doing good or bad. Much like the definition of "nuke" has nothing to do with whether it's owned by Iraq or the US.
Look at
this article
for an example of how a virus could conceivably be good for you. (While I can't vouch for the validity of that site as such, it does describe what a white-hat virus would do.)
Some viruses spread without consent. Others only spread with consent. The main characteristic of a virus is the way in which it affects everything around it once it's succeeded in spreading, not whether or not you'd actually want to have it.
A virus contracted willingly is still a virus and is of a viral nature.
Would it help if we qualified it by calling the GPL "benign viral"?
Hehe. Great fun.
Nice operating system you have here... to bad if someone should... copyright it...
I'm going to make you an EULA you just can't refuse.
They certainly can be. The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons can be examined for reference. Although I admit I'm not aware of an analog treaty for fireworks:-)
I don't think they're saying that you will not be burning more fuel. They are just saying that you will get more power out of the engine.
Presumably, 1 mole of O3 isn't a whole lot more volumous than 1 mole of O2 and on the face of it, it delivers 50% more oxygen. Assuming that Oxygen atoms are the bottleneck in the average engine and that petrol flow can be painlessly increased to burn all that new oxygen, I can see that this might work very well.
It seems suspicious that this wouldn't put a lot of extra strain on your engine though.
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I'd call the MSEULA "viral" LONG before I'd call the GPL that.
There is a much better description for MS EULAs than "viral": "evil". That doesn't mean that GPL can't still be viral though.
Who is forcing you to use the code?
One of the reasons GPL is such a good virus is that it is extremely seductive. It makes you want to contract it. This doesn't make it any less viral, quite the opposite in fact.
All copyright is viral
No it is not. If I include someone else's work in my own, it is only that part of the finished product that was made by them that is subject to their whim (assuming I didn't get a concise contract with them beforehand in which case I'd be clever enough to eliminate whim). My own work is unaffected.
If I issue a scientific report that contains an unlicensed Dilbert cartoon, I may get C&D'd and I may get sued/fined/jailed. Everything in that report, however, except for the Dilbert cartoon, has retained its original copyright (specifically, I have retained exclusive right of distribution) without being tainted in the slightest by my Dilbert copyright violation.
If Dilbert were GPL'd then what would happen is that the remainder of the report would also be GPL'd, drastically changing its legal status. I'd probably avoid jailtime though.
NO definition of a virus that I know of, talks about willfully accepting a virus into the host system
The definition of virus has nothing to do with whether it's doing good or bad. Much like the definition of "nuke" has nothing to do with whether it's owned by Iraq or the US.
Look at this article for an example of how a virus could conceivably be good for you. (While I can't vouch for the validity of that site as such, it does describe what a white-hat virus would do.)
Some viruses spread without consent. Others only spread with consent. The main characteristic of a virus is the way in which it affects everything around it once it's succeeded in spreading, not whether or not you'd actually want to have it.
A virus contracted willingly is still a virus and is of a viral nature.
Would it help if we qualified it by calling the GPL "benign viral"?
Hehe. Great fun. Nice operating system you have here ... to bad if someone should ... copyright it ...
I'm going to make you an EULA you just can't refuse.
Well, at least they didn't call themselves United Fission :-)
I did not know instructions were illegal.
:-)
They certainly can be. The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons can be examined for reference. Although I admit I'm not aware of an analog treaty for fireworks
I don't think they're saying that you will not be burning more fuel. They are just saying that you will get more power out of the engine. Presumably, 1 mole of O3 isn't a whole lot more volumous than 1 mole of O2 and on the face of it, it delivers 50% more oxygen. Assuming that Oxygen atoms are the bottleneck in the average engine and that petrol flow can be painlessly increased to burn all that new oxygen, I can see that this might work very well. It seems suspicious that this wouldn't put a lot of extra strain on your engine though.