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Many paranoid companies will often prohibit all use of GPLv3 software. The justification I've heard is that the terms of the license make it possible that anyth
by michael_miller 14y ago
Many paranoid companies will often prohibit all use of GPLv3 software. The justification I've heard is that the terms of the license make it possible that anything you produce using GPLv3 software is also GPLv3. So, for example, if you use a GPLv3 licensed version of emacs, and you write some code, the code you wrote will also become GPLv3. It's a very conservative reading of the terms of the license, but understandable for companies which have most of their net worth tied up in source code.
- hdevalence 14y ago> The terms of the licence make it possible.... No, they do not. In fact, the example you gave is exactly the example given by the FSF to explain why this does not occur. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForN... It's not a conservative reading so much as an incorrect one, and it's also nothing to do with v3 versus v2. The concern about v3 is that it means that companies are not allowed to use patent or hardware restrictions to do an end-run around the GPL's user protections. The "viral contamination" FUD has been around for over a decade at least; it's nothing to do with version 3.
- lwf 14y agoThis shows a bit of a misunderstanding of how copyright law works. Just because a tool was used in creating a work does not mean that the created work is a derivative, unless the work somehow incorporates the tool.