[erlang-questions] Is there an accepted way of including GPL code in a project?

[Tim McNamara]

On 17 April 2012 07:37, Tom Burdick <thomas.burdick@REDACTED> wrote:
> Why does it even require a lawyers opinion on this to figure it out?
> Shouldn't it be rather obvious what the intent is rather than require
> a lawyer to interpret what it really means to "modify" "link" and
> "distribute"
>
> "Can I use this without breaking the GPL?"
>
> If it the question is there, and lawyering is needed to figure it out
> and that wasn't the intention why use the GPL?
>
> Its off putting to a lot of people including myself when the intention
> was not to require me to provide my software licensed under the GPL or
> GPL compliant licensing as seems to be the case with PropEr.

[big snip]

The GPL is a complicated license. It takes steps to enforce that
future creators will respect users' freedom.* There are many people
who seek to circumvent these steps. The terms "modify", "link" and
"distribute" are fairly well defined, even if their meaning is
technical. This is different from other forms of problems in legal
terms, where they are inherently ambiguous.

* Am not taking a stand on if this constitutes freedom here, merely
that this is the intention of the license's creation.