GPL isn't any more viral than ordinary copyright. You can never distribute copyrighted material except under terms that the author grants. It's like saying the

GPL isn't any more viral than ordinary copyright. You can never distribute copyrighted material except under terms that the author grants. It's like saying the windows license (no unauthorized distribution) is viral because if you got the windows source code & used bits in your program you wouldn't be able to distribute the program at all without getting sued to hell. Did the windows license spread to your program?