Re: copyleft (was: Re: Owning a piece of my mind)

[Dean Anderson <dean@av8.com>]

When people say that GPL "infects" code, they often either afraid that some unrelated code becomes covered by the GPL, or they want to modify a GPL program, and redistributed it as their own.  Some people would perhaps like to take linux, put their own copyright on it, make a change, and redistbute it under their own terms without source.  The GPL prevents that.  Taking code and claiming it as your own is something you can do with the BSD copyright, provided you acknowledge its origin.  And many have done pretty much just that.  Those people tend to be the ones who have the most problem with the GPL.  But the conversion of free code to private code was what the GPL was designed to prevent.  It doesn't infect. It prevents erosion.

Now, if you want to have a hybrid, as you describe, which has some private code and uses some GPL code, you are free to create a library of the GPL code and redistribute that under the LGPL separately from your code. Your code can have your own copyright.  Of course, it means that your code must be in separate files from the GPL code. But that isn't too big an imposition to insure that free code doesn't get converted to private code.  Certainly, it doesn't prevent one from using GPL or LGPL code. 

		--Dean


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           Plain Aviation, Inc                  dean@av8.com
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