Hello, thanks for the reply.
I have thought about recursive and unfortunately it is not in my opinion
an adequate or equivalent substitute. It may be inoffensive, but it is
not accurate in conveying those properties or characteristics of the
GPL. Something that is recursive generally makes repeated calls to
itself. It is neatly contained and does not propagate outside of itself.
Calling a recursive method does not make the call chain all the way up
to main recursive. The recursive method does its recursion and generally
returns its result back to the caller, ending the recursion. The only
thing the caller receives is the results, not the recursion.
There are many positive cultural references to something viral or
infect(ious). For something to go viral, depends on what that something
is. She has an infectious smile, or laugh. Even in biology where we get
the term viral. It is not absolutely or always negative. There are
things that scientist attempt to use viral characteristics to do good
things. Context is everything.
There are no words a GPL proponent could provide which adequately or
otherwise describe the viral characteristic of the GPL that would be
considered positive by a GPL opponent.
Back to context.
To a GPL proponent, the viral nature of the GPL is considered a positive
and good thing. It is the primary reason to choose and use the GPL.
To the GPL opponent, the viral nature of the GPL is considered a
negative and bad thing. It is the primary reason to oppose and to avoid
using the GPL.
Two side both viewing the same exact thing and understanding it very
differently. One positive, one negative. There is no positive spin for
this aspect of the GPL for someone wishing to avoid that aspect. No
matter what words are chosen.
For the MIT/BSD person we don't necessarily care if you wish to license
your software under the GPL. What we care is that your software is
expressly and explicitly trying to override our choices and compel us to
become GPL. That is what we don't like. The fact that GPL software is
GPL software in perpetuity is okay. Just leave us alone. But we know
that is not how the GPL works.
A perspective occurred to me this morning. The original author of GPL
software is not bound by the GPL. They have freedoms the GPL takes away.
They have the freedom to turn their software into closed source,
proprietary software. They have the freedom to not release all of their
modifications. They have the freedom to not infect all their other
software which may use this otherwise GPLd code. They have freedom to
relicense their software. They have many, many freedoms which the GPL
removes from everyone who receives the GPLd software. The original
author of GPL software has for himself MIT like freedoms.
What we on the MIT/BSD side of things want is for everybody to have all
of the freedoms the original author of the software has. People who
receive our software maintain all freedoms.
I have seen over the years many GPL licensed projects change to some
more permissive license. Once they did so, the success of the project
improved. They had greater buy in, and an increase in use. It increased
the size of the open source community and an increase in the code base
of an open source project. These are good things.
Here I will let it rest. I don't know what else can be expressed to help
clarify both sides.
Jimmie
On 09/22/2017 03:27 AM, Hilaire wrote:
The appropriate and neutral term to describe GPL licence is "recursive".
GPL licence was designed to build a better computing community, where
freedom is 1st consideration, even at the expense of a lower acceptance.
Hilaire
Le 20/09/2017 à 21:30, Jimmie Houchin a écrit :
So my question to you. What words would you use instead of viral and
infection that equally describe that characteristic of the GPL and
variants?
