examples of realistic multiprocessing usage?

[Dan Stromberg]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Philip Semanchuk <philip at semanchuk.com> wrote:
> On Jan 21, 2011, at 3:36 PM, Dan Stromberg wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 3:20 AM, Adam Skutt <askutt at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Jan 20, 11:51 pm, Albert van der Horst <alb... at spenarnc.xs4all.nl>
>>> wrote:
>>>> This is what some people want you to believe. Arm twisting by
>>>> GPL-ers when you borrow their ideas? That is really unheard of.
>>>
>>> Doesn't matter, you're still legally liable if your work is found to
>>> be derivative and lacking a fair use defense.  It's not borrowing
>>> "ideas" that's problematic, it's proving that's all you did.  For
>>> those of us with legal departments, we have no choice: if they don't
>>> believe we can prove our case, we're not using the code, period.  The
>>> risk simply isn't worth it.
>>
>> Many legal departments have an overblown sense of risk, I'm afraid.
>
> I carefully avoid GPLed code on our BSD-licensed project not because I need fear anyone's legal department, but out of respect for the author(s) of the GPL-ed code. The way I see it, the author of GPL-ed code gives away something valuable and asks for just one thing in return: respect the license. It strikes me as very selfish to deny them the one thing they ask for.

That's very considerate, and yet, I think there are multiple senses of
the word "avoid" above.

If you're avoiding inspecting GPL'd code for ideas, I think if you ask
most authors of GPL'd code, they'd be more than happy to allow you to.
 I've released GPL'd code quite a few times, and personally, I'm
flattered when others want to look it over.

If you're avoiding cutting and pasting from (or linking against) GPL'd
code into something that isn't GPL-licensed, then that's very
sensible.