Because of this, libraries are frequently licensed under the Lesser GPL instead, which does permit linking without causing the resultant work from becoming GPL'

Because of this, libraries are frequently licensed under the Lesser GPL instead, which does permit linking without causing the resultant work from becoming GPL'ed itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License#Differences_from_the_GPL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_Lice... As you point out, linking code against GPL'ed code or libraries essentially merges them and makes the end result GPL'ed as well.