3 ms·
I'm not sure what you think we're debating here. I'm not talking about changing the license on the original work. I'm talking about other works which link again
by akerl_ 12y ago
I'm not sure what you think we're debating here. I'm not talking about changing the license on the original work. I'm talking about other works which link against or include parts of the original. If you write ReallyCoolTool and license it as GPL, and I write AwesomeGUIApp, which invokes your tool behind the scenes, the GPL requires that I license my code as GPL. By contrast, if you'd used MIT or BSD or similar, I'd be required to comply with the original license when it came to your code, but could license my code as Apache or keep it closed source or do whatever. The viral nature refers to what a project's license does to other code that somebody down the road writes that utilizes the original GPL project.
- belorn 12y ago> the GPL requires that I license my code as GPL. And that is false. I can use ReallyCoolTool GPL library, and write a AwesomeGUIApp and license my written code as Apache. Nothing prevents me from doing so. Each license a program use is a set of permissions with conditions in them. You can never choose to ignore a set of conditions, or you loose the permissions. This is why I started this whit "shows a lack of knowledge around what a copyright license is". A copyright license is, and can only be, a set of permissions to use a copyrighted work. Its not changeable, nor can it ever be removed by anyone except the author. The viral nature of copyright enforces this. It is childish to go around and calling a particular set of permissions as viral. Be grateful for having permission, and stop cry about it.