GPV
       General Public Virus
       

GPV
 /G?P?V/, n.

    Abbrev. for General Public Virus in widespread use.

General Public Virus
GPV

    A pejorative name for some versions of the
   GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL),
   which requires that any tools or application programs
   incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on
   the same terms as GNU code.  Thus it is alleged that the
   copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which
   may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.

   Copyright law limits the scope of the GPL to "programs
   textually incorporating significant amounts of GNU code" so
   GPL is only passed on if actual GNU source is transmitted.
   This used to be the case with the Bison parser skeleton
   until its licence was fixed.

   <http://org.gnu.de/manual/bison/html_chapter/bison_2.html#SEC2>.

   [Jargon File]

   (1999-07-14)