alt Hacker NewsIndeed, you are right, my phrasing "but the GPL only speaks about the shape of the source code itself" is somewhat wrong or at least incomplete. I should have been more careful. It does force some stuff about how to convey the corresponding source; and it seems the GPLv3 tries to close some loopholes or address some situations more explicitly. You cited the parts of the GPLv2 and GPLv3 I should have.
I stand by the position that all this doesn't seem very restrictive though. I don't think the GPL could have been without a risk of making some legitimate cases litigious or something.
> my phrasing ... is somewhat wrong
It's completely wrong.
> I stand by the position that all this doesn't seem very restrictive though.
Is your position that it's less restrictive than it needs to be?
If that's not your position, then I'm not at all sure why you're bringing this up. If that is your position, then I disagree with you. The entire point of the GPL is to require distributors to "share and share alike". It's not a "sue everyone into oblivion" license, it's a "don't be a fuckin asshole with this gift I gave you to use, inspect, and modify however you wish... pass it along to others under the same terms" license.