Re: GPL & Possible Derivative Work
On Sat, Jun 18, 2005 at 06:11:45PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> Shocking as it may sound, I agree with everything Michael has said here.
> Cleanroom implementation is not a good defense against copyright
> infringement. If you want to write code and release it under a license under
> the GPL, then don't look at the GPL'ed code. Otherwise you are copying
> something... and while its possible that that "something" isn't itself
> copyrightable material, chances are good that it is AND it really goes
> against the whole "meaning and intent" of the GPL.
This seems to boil down to "once you've looked at GPL code that does
something, you're forever banned from writing anything similar to it
under another license". I hope I'm not the only one that finds that
questionable. And no, it doesn't go against the intent of the GPL;
the GPL is intended to lock a piece of software into itself, not whole
programmers.
I've seen a whole lot of GPL'd code. It's awfully hard to make money
writing GPL'd code. Should I be looking for a new career?
--
Glenn Maynard
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