Re: GNU licenses

[mike4ty4]

Stefaan A Eeckels wrote:
> On 3 Sep 2006 18:50:35 -0700
> mike4ty4@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > Perhaps you have misunderstood my statement. I'm saying that does
> > GNU demand all your original work to be "taken over" if you use
> > GNU code? I guess it does. That's what I mean by "automatic" -- you
> > use the GNU code and then either you GNU your whole original
> > work or you are violating the license.
>
> Not GNU - GPL. And no, the GPL does not, and cannot, influence what you
> do with your original code. Copyright law gives the author of a work
> (which is defined by the law) the right to control if and how it is
> copied and distributed.
>
> It is only when you have a work that contains the original work of more
> than one author that there is a "problem" - all the authors have to
> come to an agreement on how the combined work will be copied and
> distributed.
>
> The GPL is an offer from the author of a GPLed work to the (potential)
> author of a work that would "use" the GPLed work as a component. The
> offer says: you can use my work _if_ you either
>
> * do not distribute the resulting combined work
>
> * distribute it under the GPL.
>
> If the offer is not acceptable, you simply cannot distribute the
> combined work. You retain _all_ rights to your original work (this even
> if you would distribute the combined work under the GPL). You can also
> contact the author of the GPLed work and ask her if she would be
> interested in licensing it to you on other terms (like the payment of
> royalties, or a license fee). If you come to such an agreement, you can
> distribute the combined work under another license (or no license at
> all, in which case standard copyright provisions would apply).
>
> _None_ of your original work is _ever_ "taken over" by a GPLed work.
> But neither can you "take over" a GPLed work and use it for your own
> purposes without heeding the wishes of its author.
>

Thanks for your input, but _WHY_ was the GPL originally made this way?
*What is the rationale* for having the person GPL the combined work as
part of the terms, which includes all the original content?

> Take care,
>
> --
> Stefaan A Eeckels
> --
>    The one thing IT really needs to outsource is the freakin' clueless
>  managers that don't understand that there are more possibilities than
> chaos on the one hand and the reduction of alternatives to zero on the
> other.                    -- Richard Hamilton in comp.sys.sun.hardware