On Oct 3, 2008, at 10:54 AM, Dan Armbrust wrote:

>>> If Tomcat were under GPL, we wouldn't be using
>>> Tomcat.  Simple as that.
>>
>> You most likely would, since you are insulated from the tomcat
>> implementation by the servlet/jsp/jsf/whatver interface  
>> specification.
>
> Corporate lawyers don't want to even here the word GPL, much less
> debate what makes something a derivative work.
>
> In a company large enough to have its own lawyers, just mention the
> word GPL related to one of your software releases and see what happens
> :)


ACTUALLY, when I worked for Ingersoll-Rand, they had a rather  
restrictive "inventor's" clause they wanted me to sign, which,  
essentially, wanted me to sign ALL rights to anything I wrote/built/ 
designed/thought-of/fathered/etc.  I denied, and we re-negotiated  
things.  One of those was that any software utilities I wrote would be  
attributable to me, and GPL'd.  Better than me just having to sign  
everything to them.

For the record, I'm not a fan of GPL'd software, I prefer a BSD  
license, but in this circumstance, it was a reasonable middle-ground.
---
Eric Crist