The *GPL extends the circumstances where I can take somebodies work.
but isn't this notion rather frightening?
Frightning? Have you been effected with Brett fear mongering? :-)
I don't consider it frightning. Copyleft is a trade where someone was allowed distribute my work and did and as companation I can take his related work.
Of course this is not always good as I have been arguing in countless mail, but that is another thing. Sometimes this is good idea sometimes it is not.
nor does it force you to give up your copyright (effectively).
Neither does the LGPL you can still license the code to others under any license. You just have to give it back under the LGPL as well.
if you have to give out an unlimited, royalty free license to your work, I think it's not unfair to say that you have given up your copyright protection. As the copyright holder, it's true that you can relicense it to suit other licenses, but it's not clear to me that you can clearly make a copyright infringment case if there is an LGPLed copy in the public.
Well if somebody uses my work in a way either not permitted by LGPL or explicitly permited by me through some other license I can't see why I can't sue.
At least not unless you claim that Open Source == Public Domain, but that is something else entirely.
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Patrik Stridvall