Re: GNU License, Again

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

      >>  You can reduce it to a semantic debate. But in the end the GPL
      >>  is structured so that the only legal way for you to
      >>  redistribute modified copies of GPL licensed code is to license
      >>  the modifications under the GPL.

      >There are several ways to come into compliance, this is one of
      >them.  Requesting the copyright holder to change the license is
      >another.  And a third is simply not using the GPL program.

      Mike wants to understand why the GPL is structured to have such
      compliance. I've seen your posts that states to go read this
      document and that document. I'd like to hear your summary of why
      the GPL is structured so that the easiest avenue to be in
      compliance with the license is to release modifications under
      the GPL. Why is the GPL structured so that GPL and non
      compatible GPL components cannot be combined into a
      distributable combined work?

   Because that would make the user give up their freedom, they can no
   longer use the combined (I assume you do not mean aggregated, but a
   deriviate) work, since it is not free anymore.

Meh, it is getting late; let me rephrase, and clarify.

If you combine a free program and a non-free program, the deriviate of
the free program is no longer free.  So a users will lose their
freedom to run/study/improve/distribute the program.  The GPL sees
that the user will always have the right to run, study, improve and
distribute a program, no matter how you combine it with other works.
It sees that the _GPL_program_ stays 100% free, not that it will
result in more GPL code.

If you think of it in terms of adding GPL incompatible code to a GPL
program, it should be clearer.  Since linking is indeed iffy waters,
though it is the same principle, modifying a GPL program and creating
a deriviate work.

Is this a better explanation?