The GPL and license infection

Posted Oct 29, 2004 21:06 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
Parent article: The GPL and license infection

I have to agree with Epstein more than LWN about the intent of GPL.

It is more than apparent to me that the FSF's goal is to get publishers to liberate their code, not to sue publishers for damages and collect royalties.

Epstein does not suggest that a court would order source code released, or that those who license code under GPL intend for a court to do so.

If the GPL resulted only in authors of free software winning lawsuits and collecting royalties, I'm sure RMS would consider the movement a failure.

So yes, the apparent intent of the GPL viral clause is to induce a copyright owner of a new program to open source his stuff too. Not force him -- just tempt him with the offer of royalty-free use of some code.

The GPL and license infection

Posted Oct 31, 2004 21:42 UTC (Sun) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link]

I agree that the FSF's intention is to induce copyright owners to free their software by tempting them with existing free code, but he didn't use the word induce. He implied that the goal is to force a program to become open source, which is not true.