20040701 CMcC: GPL is a free software license with a requirement that you distribute source code with any Program or Work under the following (or similar) provisions:
3a) [[you must]] Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code,
which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used
for software interchangeGiven that all scripts are immediately also 'machine-readable source code', it seems to me that distributing a pure tcl source file under GPL does nothing but prevent someone byte-compiling it, or possibly obfuscating it (which doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing.)
In particular, I don't believe that [source GPL.tcl] imposes the GPL on the code executing it, and I strongly disbelieve that it entails anything about the license of the interpreter under which the code is running.
My argument, by analogy, is that the relationship between a tcl script and the interpreter under which it runs is that of a Virtual Machine, analogous with the relationship between a C program and the O/S under which it runs. If it were necessary for the distributor of a GPL.tcl script to provide source to tclsh, it would analogously be necessary for the distributor of a GPL.c program to provide source to Windows under some circumstances. Since nobody has every alleged the latter, the former is by analogy untrue. (NB: I understand there is some problem with argument by analogy :)
I therefore don't understand the prevailing aversion to GPL among tclers.