Just have to market it to wives...

And the idea that the government is going to do any better isn't pure fantasy either?

As for parenting... lets just say that I have some strong opinions on what good parenting is, that it doesn't involve knowing what they're doing all the time, that it doesn't involve being a tyrant, and that it doesn't involve treating them like a prisoner. It involves trust, respect, and guidance. (Hint, the fact that, as a kid, most of my friends were amazed that my parents would talk to them like they were actual people with real opinions that were worth something says a lot about wtf is wrong with most parents today... and why so many kids get into trouble) But that's a whole different discussion.

My reading of that is that if I were to write an entire online game, integrate a GPLed IRC client into it for use as a chat mechanism, and then release it... is that my entire game would then be GPLed as I have "[distributed] the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program"

If I were to instead, write an entire online game, integrate a blank spot for chat, setup an interface satisfiable by several plugins, allow the user to dynamically specify which plugin they would want to use, and then distribute the GPLed IRC plugin as a seperate entity from the rest of my work... that then I would be ok, I'd only need to release the source for the GPLed plugin.

However, as the GPL is worded, it causes me and my company a lot of worry. Hence why I've gone to lengths to dynamically specify and dynamically load GPLed code as a plugin when I've had to use it. That allowed us to, if we ever needed to distribute, distribute as seperate works; and maintain complete independence from the GPLed code.

I'd suggest contrasting the LGPL with the GPL, there's some significant differences in the licenses.

On a side note on my hypothetical, if I simply had to release the code for the GPLed IRC client along with any modifications I made to get it to work as I wanted, then fine and dandy. I'd be just fine with that, and I'd even venture that my company would as well (well, if they were involved with games at all... :P). However, that isn't how the license reads; so I get to go through a lot of hoops.

I'm guessing that you're unaware that the bills that Raul654 is referring to attempted to do... the exact same thing? Bills attempting to do exactly this have been struck down multiple times now, with court costs awarded. Why do you feel that this situation is any different?

Are you also in favor of making the sale of R-rated movies to minors illegal? How about books that deal with violence? Batman comics?

Parents can already control what thier kids play, it's called be a parent.

The definition of derivative work is the issue.

I'd love to be able to utilize GPLed code, provide the code, credit the author(s), and create a work that utilized that functionality, intact, as an accoutrement to the rest of the application.

Unfortunantly, a strict reading of the GPL leads me (and my companies OSS group) to believe that this would mean that my entire application is a derivative work that would fall under the GPL. I've gotten around this in the past by having the GPLed code in a plugin form that is dynamically specified and then dynamically loaded so that the application is significantly distanced from the GPLed code.

Perhaps that's not how the GPL is intended to work, but there's enough leeway in interpreting it, that you have to be really careful.