> if you write 9,990 lines of proprietary code and include 10 lines of GPL code, the whole 10,000 becomes GPL, right? No. The 9990 lines remain under whatever

> if you write 9,990 lines of proprietary code and include 10 lines of GPL code, the whole 10,000 becomes GPL, right? No. The 9990 lines remain under whatever license you desire. The 10 lines remain GPL. You can't distribute the whole work. > And then the whole 10,000 becomes public property according to the GPL The GPL doesn't make software "public property", whatever you think that entails. > so the person who wrote the 9,990 lines of proprietary code starves to death and dies because you can't monetize public property, No capable programmers starve to death, or even earn poorly because of the GPL. Approximately 90% of programming work is in-house development. > because you can't monetize public property, I don't know what this means; the GPL isn't about commercial software but proprietary software. >and our food system only accepts money in exchange for food, not "good deeds" or whatever? Again, I don't know what this means or what money (or even food), have to do with anything. >If so, then this is what people mean when they say the GPL is a "general public virus". If so, they are woefully misinformed and shouldn't be writing any sort of detraction lightly disguised as a very poor analysis online when the GPL is being discussed.