I see. It almost seems to be starting to make sense. That even brings clarity to: "But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work

I see. It almost seems to be starting to make sense. That even brings clarity to: "But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program..." No matter how you distribute them, they never formed a "work based on the Program" anyway so the GPL doesn't spread. If all that's correct, it seems to leave a loophole that I mentioned where you can fork the original program to make it specially compatible with your proprietary program and redistribute it under the GPL. Now when you combine them you're not modifying it because you (or your friend if need be) did that before you obtained it and the modification is none of your business.