Re: gpl as applied to ideas

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   Hi all,
   Thanks for the replies.

   Merijn wrote:
   > If you do borrow creative parts of someone else's work,
   > you either infringe their copyright or you need to comply
   > with their license. In case of the GPL, that means your
   > derivative (if published) has to be GPL as well.

   In effect, GPLed software is more inaccessible for study and
   inspection than shareware? By fear of contamination.

There is no such thing `contamination' when it comes to copyright,
either you have agreed or not.  Contamination is a FUDword.  The GPL
does not put any restrictions on study and inspection.  Shareware is
on the other hand non-free software, which you cannot study or inspect
even if you wanted to, since the license is subjugates your right to
do so.

Copyright infringment does not occur when you simply study something,
nor does it depend on any specific license like the GNU GPL.  If you
copy something from a non-free program, then this is copyright
infrigment, since you are not allowed to do so.  The GPL does not put
any such restrictions on your rights.

   Several leading Linux distros have GUI similar to M$ Windows so
   that the end user feels at home when switching over.

When you speak of the operating system that is basically the GNU
system with Linux added, would you please call it "GNU/Linux"?  If you
call it just "Linux", you're giving the principal developers none of
the credit.

See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html for more explanation
about this.

Happy hacking.