GPL is basically the software equivalent of Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike.

Those who have a problem with it do so because they don’t want to share alike.

They want to take but not give.

So you decide how you feel about that.

@aral I think that there is a more nuanced discussion there.

The way you frame it leaves no space for licenses such as MIT, which are about sharing as well, but with different constraints and guarantees.

Yes, I know that licenses such as BSD/MIT allows one to close their alterations on derivative work. If that is a concern, then GPL is your friend.

Still, there are cases when the authors are perfectly fine with that, and still want to share their work. In these cases BSD/MIT make sense.

@soapdog @aral non-copyleft only makes sense if you are OK with intellectual creation not being part of the commons. If creation empowers those who experience it, use and create from it, non-copyleft means you are OK giving even more power to a select few who usually already wield it, rather than the entirety of humanity of today and tomorrow.

Saying "I don't care how it's used" is the same as saying "I don't do politics": it means you're ok with the current system and willing to give it more weight (and incidentally you *are* doing politics)

@rakoo MIT license is copyleft, and it is also a political stance. In my opinion, there are software who benefit from GPL and other software benefit from MIT. It is not a binary "GPL or bust" for me.

Also, caring about digital commons does not mean just the GPL. There are many options, unless of course you think that the BSDs are not a part of digital commons...

It is a political action that says "this is what I did with it, do it as you wish, if you want to contribute back, it is ok"

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