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General Public Virus
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General Public Virus /n./ Pejorative name for some versions
of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License
(GPL), which requires that any tools or apps incorporating
copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same
counter-commercial terms as GNU stuff. Thus it is alleged that the
copyleft `infects' software generated with GNU tools, which may
in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code. The
Free Software Foundation's official position as of January 1991 is
that copyright law limits the scope of the GPL to "programs
textually incorporating significant amounts of GNU code", and that
the `infection' is not passed on to third parties unless actual
GNU source is transmitted (as in, for example, use of the Bison
parser skeleton). Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that the
copyleft language is `boobytrapped' has caused many
developers to avoid using GNU tools and the GPL. Recent (July
1991) changes in the language of the version 2.00 license may
eliminate this problem.
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