> But there’s nothing stopping you from re-coding existing implementations of GPL’ed code. There is if you've read the code. You can still violate copyright if

> But there’s nothing stopping you from re-coding existing implementations of GPL’ed code. There is if you've read the code. You can still violate copyright if you're hand-copying an implementation of a feature. Lawyers recommend "clean room" re-implementations when reproducing copyrighted functionality (when folks bother to ask) precisely to avoid the risk of code being copied verbatim. Functionality can be copied. Code can not.