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There is no such thing as the "infectious nature of the GPL". Just like any other license, it has restrictions. If you violate them you are breaching copyright

There is no such thing as the "infectious nature of the GPL". Just like any other license, it has restrictions. If you violate them you are breaching copyright law. Github contains plenty of software uploaded without any license, which, by default, means closed source. Similarly, if use significant portions of those you violate copyright law. There is no concept of "infection" and "virality" in copyright law.

chrismorgan 5y ago
The fact that GPL isn’t special is exactly what I’m saying. But I think you know what I’m referring to by “the infectious nature of the GPL”: that such licenses as GPL and the CC-SA family require that derived works be under a similar license. And the fact of the matter is that people are likely to care about that a bit more than missed attribution, whether they should or not. But, as I say, it’s still violation.
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  The thing is: The GPL is different. With other licenses if you distribute derived work, the distribution is illegal. With GPL in the mix the derived work becomes GPL as well.
  - chrismorgan 5y ago
    No, that’s no different. With all licenses, derived work must comply with the terms or else be illegal. For something like MIT/Apache2, the burden is that your derived work must acknowledge the copyright and license of the original work. For something like GPL, the burden is that your derived work must acknowledge the copyright and license of the original work, and must be under a similar license to the original work. So yeah, it requires more of you, but it’s fundamentally the same proposition of “obey the terms or it’s illegal”.
    - johannes1234321 5y ago
      The legal conclusion of a case where one embeds GPL Code, but doesn't release their own code is, as always in law, hard to predict. However gpl-violations.org documents different court case which ended in publication of code based on GPL'd code.
      - chrismorgan 5y ago
        OK, I see where you’re coming from now. I’m still sceptical that it’d be fundamentally any different: I wouldn’t expect a court to be able to compel them to release their code, only to order that they either comply or cease distribution, and issue fines—both of which would be the same on any license, though to be sure compliance is easier on permissive licenses than copyleft licenses. (I also note that you could easily have mingled other-licensed stuff that says you must not release the code; I wonder what a court would make of such a situation; I doubt that they’d quite order you to violate one license in order to comply with another.) Do you have a link for a particular case where an entity was ordered to release their software?
        goodpoint 5y ago
        > I wouldn’t expect a court to be able to compel them to release their code, only to order that they either comply or cease distribution Correct. On top of that, GPL is very lenient and provides multiple escape mechanisms. Also it does not require any damage compensation.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Absolutely incorrect. With the GPL the distribution of software contrary to the terms of the license remains illegal just as with any software under any license. As with any other software you must either stop distribution or come to an agreement with the party owns the copyright to the code. The GPL merely provides you a get out of infringement free card whereby you may release all of the code under the GPL. This is different only insofar as it is more permissive not less compared to proprietary software. The idea that the GPL infects your code is a fantasy.
_ph_ 5y ago
The concept of infection is in the license terms of the GPL. It requires any code derived or linked against GPL software to also be GPL. This is where the term "infectious" comes from. As the previous poster says, this isn't the question here, as most licenses have terms which are not fulfilled by the copilot, if it is considered a derivative work. BSD for example requires attribution which copilot doesn't do either.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Indeed, there is a reason why commercial projects and corporations avoid GPL like a plague.
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    There's an interesting dichotomy here. Linux is super-successful largely because it is GPL, but only because the syscall boundary (as a widely-accepted "GPL firewall") separates it from company code. Meanwhile companies will more or less blanket-ban GPL and AGPL software, even if the terms would not impact them at all.
    - jakear 5y ago
      What annoys me most is that the “infection clause” so often results in a strictly worse user experience. Take Audacity, it’s a fully open source piece of software, but to do lots of common operations in it you need to figure out how to link in FFmpeg. This is something your or I can do no problem in our sleep, but it’s an absolute dealbreaker for someone like my dad, and probable millions of other people trying to get into audio projects using free software. I imagine a large number will simply bounce out and stick to GarageBand or whatever. I’m conflicted on this, on one hand I think FFmpeg is a brilliant piece of engineering and I want the creators to receive credit, but on the other I think Audacity and its built in components as listed in its “third party licenses” document are brilliant pieces of software that do receive credit. Further, I believe the one of the primary purposes of technology should be to enable the masses to create, and this licensing places an arbitrary yet powerful restriction on that for folks who aren’t already computer-proficient.

chrismorgan 5y ago

The fact that GPL isn’t special is exactly what I’m saying. But I think you know what I’m referring to by “the infectious nature of the GPL”: that such licenses as GPL and the CC-SA family require that derived works be under a similar license. And the fact of the matter is that people are likely to care about that a bit more than missed attribution, whether they should or not. But, as I say, it’s still violation.

johannes1234321 5y ago
The thing is: The GPL is different. With other licenses if you distribute derived work, the distribution is illegal. With GPL in the mix the derived work becomes GPL as well.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  No, that’s no different. With all licenses, derived work must comply with the terms or else be illegal. For something like MIT/Apache2, the burden is that your derived work must acknowledge the copyright and license of the original work. For something like GPL, the burden is that your derived work must acknowledge the copyright and license of the original work, and must be under a similar license to the original work. So yeah, it requires more of you, but it’s fundamentally the same proposition of “obey the terms or it’s illegal”.
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    The legal conclusion of a case where one embeds GPL Code, but doesn't release their own code is, as always in law, hard to predict. However gpl-violations.org documents different court case which ended in publication of code based on GPL'd code.
    - chrismorgan 5y ago
      OK, I see where you’re coming from now. I’m still sceptical that it’d be fundamentally any different: I wouldn’t expect a court to be able to compel them to release their code, only to order that they either comply or cease distribution, and issue fines—both of which would be the same on any license, though to be sure compliance is easier on permissive licenses than copyleft licenses. (I also note that you could easily have mingled other-licensed stuff that says you must not release the code; I wonder what a court would make of such a situation; I doubt that they’d quite order you to violate one license in order to comply with another.) Do you have a link for a particular case where an entity was ordered to release their software?
      - goodpoint 5y ago
        > I wouldn’t expect a court to be able to compel them to release their code, only to order that they either comply or cease distribution Correct. On top of that, GPL is very lenient and provides multiple escape mechanisms. Also it does not require any damage compensation.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Absolutely incorrect. With the GPL the distribution of software contrary to the terms of the license remains illegal just as with any software under any license. As with any other software you must either stop distribution or come to an agreement with the party owns the copyright to the code. The GPL merely provides you a get out of infringement free card whereby you may release all of the code under the GPL. This is different only insofar as it is more permissive not less compared to proprietary software. The idea that the GPL infects your code is a fantasy.

_ph_ 5y ago

The concept of infection is in the license terms of the GPL. It requires any code derived or linked against GPL software to also be GPL. This is where the term "infectious" comes from. As the previous poster says, this isn't the question here, as most licenses have terms which are not fulfilled by the copilot, if it is considered a derivative work. BSD for example requires attribution which copilot doesn't do either.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Indeed, there is a reason why commercial projects and corporations avoid GPL like a plague.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  There's an interesting dichotomy here. Linux is super-successful largely because it is GPL, but only because the syscall boundary (as a widely-accepted "GPL firewall") separates it from company code. Meanwhile companies will more or less blanket-ban GPL and AGPL software, even if the terms would not impact them at all.
  - jakear 5y ago
    What annoys me most is that the “infection clause” so often results in a strictly worse user experience. Take Audacity, it’s a fully open source piece of software, but to do lots of common operations in it you need to figure out how to link in FFmpeg. This is something your or I can do no problem in our sleep, but it’s an absolute dealbreaker for someone like my dad, and probable millions of other people trying to get into audio projects using free software. I imagine a large number will simply bounce out and stick to GarageBand or whatever. I’m conflicted on this, on one hand I think FFmpeg is a brilliant piece of engineering and I want the creators to receive credit, but on the other I think Audacity and its built in components as listed in its “third party licenses” document are brilliant pieces of software that do receive credit. Further, I believe the one of the primary purposes of technology should be to enable the masses to create, and this licensing places an arbitrary yet powerful restriction on that for folks who aren’t already computer-proficient.