From: Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@...>
Date: 2003-07-10T05:34:53+09:00
Subject: Re: My brief and torrid affair with Ruby.

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On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 05:26:51AM +0900, Michael Campbell wrote:

> "forced" isn't relevant.
> 
> The real world isn't as black and white as the following contrived situation
> indicates, but I'm not "forced" to go contract some communicable disease
> either, and yet they are still very much viral and infectious.  The fact
> that I can choose to avoid them doesn't make them less so.
> 
> Or did I misread you?

You've misread me.  A virus can attack you, even if you don't want to.  A 
virus can jump from one host and infect you.  The GPL cannot do that.  
Copyright law does not permit that.

Suppose for a second that the only way to get the flu, were for you to 
drive down to the lab and buy a flu tube.  If that were the case, then the 
flue would be like the GPL.

However, that is not the case.  You can get the flu from another person, 
even if you were not trying to get the flu.  That makes the flu different 
from the GPL.

- -- 
Daniel Carrera         | OpenPGP fingerprint:
Graduate TA, Math Dept | 6643 8C8B 3522 66CB D16C D779 2FDD 7DAC 9AF7 7A88
UMD  (301) 405-5137    | http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/pgp.html
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