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0 pointsdavexunit9y ago0 comments

Taint is pejorative. Why must you choose negative terms to describe copyleft? Words matter, and words like "taint" and "viral" have been chosen for the purpose of harming copyleft's reputation.

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ThrowawayR29y ago· 2 in thread

> Why must you choose negative terms to describe copyleft?

Because there's an unfortunate kernel of truth to it?

From the standpoint of people using any other license, copyleft code (intentionally) causes an undesirable side effect of attaching its license terms to your code base if the slightest bit of it is merged in, whether through a developer's carelessness, ignorance, or otherwise. And the effects may not be noticed for quite some time. It takes vigilance and developer education to prevent this from happening. One struggles to think of a term that doesn't have pejorative connotations to describe this effect. I have yet to see anyone suggest a credible alternative.

(And please don't suggest "protective"; that's so transparently doublespeak that it's surprising that it ever took off. Things that are protective don't just reach out and latch onto other things they are accidentally brought into contact with.)

EDIT: minor rewording for clarity

Nursie9y ago

You make it sound like the code does this itself!

It doesn't reach out, it grants you a ton of rights in exchange for you preserving those rights downstrea. in projects you use it in.

If that is not a good tradeoff for you, don't use it.

You make it sound like an active, infectious agent.

ThrowawayR29y ago

You do bring up a good point and I've adjusted the wording to reflect that active agency (i.e. a developer) is involved. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in an earlier post, quite a number of developers are not educated in the specifics of open source licenses or IP law or even simply don't care and this can cause problems in codebases that aren't copyleft licensed.

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reitanqild9y ago

Kind of agree. But what do you call it that describes it in a non-pejorative way?

I am thankful for GPL and GPL-ed sw. I just find some of the advocacy for it a bit annoying.

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