Free?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, October 23, 2011 11:06:26 Jose Armando Garcia wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 4:11 AM, Russel Winder <russel at russel.org.uk> wrote:
> > It funny how when it comes to licences, viral is used as a derogatory
> > term, but when used in marketing, viral is a positive goal that everyone
> > wants to achieve.
> 
> That is because you live in a capitalist economy. I don't find it
> funny at all. I am always shock to hear what people are willing to do
> and say for the pursuit of a profit. It is even more shocking when
> technologist and scientist start judging technologies and innovation
> based on profitability. One can one do? That is the world we live in.

LOL. I don't think that it has anything to do with a capitalist anything. It's 
going purely by the definition of viral. In the case of the GPL, because it's 
viral, it affects everything that it comes into contact wtih. It "infects" any 
code that you use it with. Many view the fact that the GPL does this as 
negative. In the case of the market campaign, the message is passed onto 
everyone that it comes into contact with, so the message becomes very 
widespread. This is obviously something that advertisers view as positive. In 
both cases, the term viral refers to how it spreads, not whether it's negative 
or positive. It's just that in the one case, having it spread like that is 
viewed as negative by some, and in the other it's viewed as positive. The word 
is used in essentially the same way in both cases meaning the same thing, and 
it in itself does not make that particular case either good or bad.

- Jonthan M Davis