[Starson17]

Originally Posted by user_none

See http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput and http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html...aseIsOutputGPL for an explanation.
In regard to the first link, even though things like style sheets are added by calibre to some ebook types they do not constitute a substantial amount of the output.

Yes, I'm familiar with the many FAQs on the GPL. I'm really not trying to argue that there is any reasonable likelihood that the GPL applies to any calibre output. Even if there is the barest such possibility, there's no reasonable likelihood that the GPL would be or could be enforced against anyone for that situation. It's just that I like to know the limits, even when it's just the limits of the universe that I'm interested in

For the record, from one of those FAQ questions:

In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?
Only when the program copies part of itself into the output.

Again, I'm not arguing that the GPL does apply to the output just because some tiny bit of internal recipe formatting code of CSS/HTML, etc. got copied over into the output.

It's just that I find the subject interesting. I can imagine a hypothetical (and that's all it is) where a recipe author spends hundreds of hours authoring a complex recipe to produce complex output for displaying some complex data. His recipe extensively copies his work into the output. Then an evil entity comes along and copies that output. Under the right circumstances, there might (I emphasize the "might) be a GPL claim.

Time for me to take off the Devil's advocate robes and do some real work