Why the General Public License (GPL)

If I were going to write a book on philosophy, theology, or literature, no one would expect my book to be completely original. In fact, readers of my work would judge me based on the original sources I quoted, how well I understood those sources. In short, no author of a scholarly work stands on his own, instead he stands on the shoulders of giants. In order to stand on shoulders of giants, you have to have read the works of giants in order to produce a new idea or concept. This is how ideas work and mature. The writing of software is no different.

This concept of how ideas work make me tentatively against all patents and copyrights. I say "tentatively", because I am willing to admit that this position is not as firm in my thinking as other ideas, and it is quite possible that I will think differently on this issue some time in the future.

If the work that is done on this project is done well, we would want to make sure that such quality work lives on as a legacy, inspiring other coders to take our concepts even further than where we have gone. In order to insure that this transitioning occurs some time in the future, this work, and its derivatives must be free. I want this software to have the "viral" effect of the GPL, because I believe that this is what will insure its continuity into the future. That is why these set of libraries are licensed under the GPL and not the lesser GPL.