'GPL encumbrance problems'

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 16:37, Andy Green wrote:

> Then to repeat Erwin's point, why should the people who did the work to
> create, by choice, a GPL'd library or app, have made another choice to
> facilitate your locking up a proprietary app based on or deriving from
> it? 

Once the first little bit is GPL'd, no one has that choice if they
want to contribute.  For a very large part of the code base, I'd
guess that applying the GPL restrictions was not the author's first
choice.  And from the dual-licensed items like perl, you can tell
that some authors go well out of their way to ensure that others do
not have their choices taken away.

> But please don't moan about the terrible consequences of the GPL when
> this is a deliberate feature wielded by the coders that chose the
> license, it just sounds like you want something for nothing.

That would be a fair argument if every person who contributed
code were allowed to choose whether to encumber his portion
with the GPL or not.  That isn't the case, and that's the
part of the complaint.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com