title: GPL Code: What counts as a derivative work?
body: <p>I'm working on an open-source project that I want to release under a permissive license, because it's a library, not an application and personally, I don't like copyleft for library code.  If I were to browse through GPL code written in a different programming language just to get a general idea of how to do something, and then write a different implementation of a similar or identical algorithm in the language I'm using, what would likely be the consequences?  Would the copyleft owners have any legitimate complaints if my code was somewhat similar to, and clearly influenced by, theirs?  How do these gray areas typically work?</p>