[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“At issue is whether the GNU public license (GPL) causes some
unintended consequences; most notably by inadvertently bilks the
software developers, thorough the weakening of the copyright and
patent institution, to the advantage of the publishers and
users.”
“Contrary to what most programmers might concluded, there’s
nothing special about the GPL, it’s a bilateral (or synallagmatic,
the cocontractants have reciprocal obligations) and commutative
(the cocontractants know exactly what to expect from each other
when executing their respective obligations) contract.
Consequently, by being contract, the GPL is subject to the same
rules that apply to any other contract.”