Exercise 3: The Real Consequence of Incorporating a ShareAlike Snippet — Possible Solution ==================================================================== WHAT SHAREALIKE ACTUALLY REQUIRES, PER THIS CHAPTER ------------------------------ Per this chapter's own building-block table, ShareAlike (SA) means "any derivative work must be released under the same or a compatible license." Per this chapter's own warn-box, this obligation extends further than just the reused piece itself: "incorporating SA-licensed material into a larger new work generally requires the ENTIRE resulting work to carry a compatible SA license - not just the specific portion that was reused." APPLYING THIS TO THE DEVELOPER'S SCENARIO ------------------------------ The developer wants to use a small CC BY-SA-licensed snippet inside a much larger project intended to carry a restrictive, different license overall. Per this chapter's own rule, incorporating that snippet doesn't just require attributing the snippet in isolation - it generally obligates the entire larger project (not merely the small snippet) to also be released under a compatible ShareAlike license. The developer's original plan to license the whole project restrictively is directly in tension with this requirement. WHY THIS IS DESCRIBED AS A "COPYLEFT" EFFECT ------------------------------ Per this chapter, this is "a much bigger commitment than it first appears" - a seemingly small, low-risk decision (reusing one small snippet) can end up governing the licensing terms of an entire, much larger body of otherwise-original work. The obligation doesn't stay proportionally scoped to how much of the original SA-licensed material was actually used. WHAT THE DEVELOPER'S REAL OPTIONS ARE ------------------------------ Given this chapter's own framing, the developer would need to either accept that the entire project must carry a compatible SA license (abandoning the plan to license it restrictively), find a differently-licensed alternative to the snippet that doesn't carry this obligation, or write an equivalent piece of code themselves from scratch rather than reusing the SA-licensed snippet at all. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ It quotes this chapter's own precise statement of what ShareAlike requires, applies that rule directly and concretely to the developer's specific stated plan rather than describing SA only in the abstract, and identifies the real tension this creates with the developer's original licensing intent.