The Business of Software - Reading other people's code and the GPL

A couple of days ago I asked the visitors on the joelonsoftware forums for their opinion about whether it was legal/ethical to read GPL'ed code and to learn from it, and then straight-off apply that knowledge in a closed source commercial app.

The consensus seems to be that it's OK, though michaels in particular said "I would say if you are reading it and implementing it again *only* because it is GPL and you can't use it as-is then it's unethical".

Read up more here and make up your own mind... The Business of Software - Reading other people's code and the GPL