On Mon, Dec 07, 2009 at 07:09:30PM +0100, Mike Collinson wrote: > I believe there was a discussion that "viral" does necessarily mean > "reciprocal", hence the use of the word. I'll check tomorrow if no one else > comes back.
If you get down to various meanings already documented in English, neither “viral” nor “reciprocal” are perfect fits. I agree that “share alike” is also a good alternative. “viral”, although it does not necessarily mean something bad (infectious smile :) ), it has bad connotations which are just used to bring licenses such as the GPL into bad light. Software under the GPL license does not inject itself into other software and automatically make the result licensed under the GPL, contrary to some belief. “reciprocal” is better, but the mutuality of reciprocation isn’t quite provided by share alike licenses: Share alike says: “I give you this, and allow you to do stuff with it, on the condition that if you give it to someone else, you also allow them to do all this stuff.” It does not necessarily mean that you have to give it back. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall
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