alt Hacker NewsThere is no "virality", and the article's use of "propagation" to mean the same thing is wrong. The GPL doesn't "cause" anything to be GPLed that hasn't been explicitly licensed under the GPL by the owner of its copyright. The GPL grants a license to use the copyright material to which it applies. To satisfy the terms of that license for a particular use may require that you license other code under the GPL, but if you don't the GPL can't magically make that code GPLed. You will, however, not be covered by the license so unless your use is permitted for some other reason (eg. fair use or a different license you have been granted) your use of the the original code will be a violation of copyright. All of this has been repeatedly tested in court.
It's sad to see Microsoft's FUD still festering 20 years later.
Replies
It's not Microsoft FUD, you're describing the license as viral too, but playing with words. The fact is that if you include GPL'd stuff in your stuff, that assemblage has to conform to the GPL's rules.
You're basically saying "the GPL doesn't go back in time and relicense unrelated code." But nobody was ever claiming it does, and describing it as "viral" doesn't imply that it does. It's "viral" because code that you stick to it has to conform to its rules. It's good that the GPL is viral. I want it to be viral, I don't want people to be able to hide GPL'd code in a proprietary structure.
Virality is a very good feature of GPL and part of what makes it a meaningfully different choice than other open licenses, I don't know why you want attribute that to Microsoft of all places.