Re: Combining GPL and non-GPL code

I agree with your statement and reasoning.  Work as a whole does not necessarily mean "every line of code" but rather "the compilation" in the same sense as "anthology" but IANAL.

I.e. nothing prevents me from licensing *part* of that work under a license compatible with the GPL as long as the "work as a whole" is licensed with appropriate permissions.  This becomes a larger question if the BSD depends on GPL code rather than the other way around (and that might be a more difficult case because one could argue derivation).

Absent from the concerns of derivation, nothing in the GPL requires that code not derived from other GPL code that the author does not hold appropriate copyrights to might be licensed under terms more permissive than the GPL.  For example, if the code is all my own, nothing says I can't license every file based on different compatible licneses provided that they do not prevent the *work as a whole* from carrying the rights and restrictions of the GPL.

To put it another way, I can compile a large amount of public domain literature, and reserve all rights to the anthology, but someone can still take my work and copy out the public domain components, combine them with other ones, re-arrange them, and copyright that anthology as non-derivative of my own.

There may be cases where the path of licensing has an effect (I license a copy of a program to you under a BSD license, change my mind, and release to the public under the GPL).  Limited distribution might matter.

Agreed.  THe license isn't "that" contageous.  Arguing that any user of GPL tools forfits BSD rights to the dependencies is silly :-).

It is a moot point.  The BSD code is publically available.  Therefore they have granted such a license to the public at large.  Restricting code copied into another application does not mean you can't go back to the original.  And if the file as a whole is still licensed under the BSD license, I would argue that this would be sufficient even if other files in the application are now GPL, absent concerns about derivation ( i.e. one would probably want to look over the code to make sure that the GPL code depended on the BSD code and not the other way around).

The BSD vs GPL argument is furthermore *stupid* and *counterproductive.* All software lives or dies based on community.  GPL and BSD both have advantages and not in many areas including collaborative development of systems to compete with established competition (I think it is a toss-up as for utility), but in the end community, and not licenses are what are important for the success of a project.