Sorry to eavesdrop on your conversation, and intrude uninvited, but I smelled whiffs of "copyright is wrong -> GPL uses copyright -> GPL is wrong", and I would like to remind you that the way GPL uses it is - to troll the system, to twist and turn copyright around to make it destroy itself. And it is upfront about it, it doesn't try to pretend that copyright is good. There is no reason to not use it as a tool to achieve your goals today, in practise. Once you achieved the no copyright utopia, GPL will just be harmlessly deprecated.
GPL is only wrong because its viral nature infects truly free software that uses permissive licenses, stifling their growth. Its not bad because copyright is bad, its bad because it is hurtful to projects that wish to forfeit their copyright.
@freemo I think you might be a bit out of context here but anyway... you present yet another argument that would work in free software paradise(where GPL is moot anyway), but doesn't work in proprietary software hell that you don't realize you exist in (and the only known way out of it today is GPL).
How exactly does GPL hurt someone who doesn't care about copyright, I don't understand, can you explain that? It only hurts them, if their forfeited their right specifically with the intention for someone else to take over the project and make it proprietary.
What do you mean you can't "merge". As in "you can't make derivative work, that allows future derivative work to be proprietary?". Yeah, that's the whole point?? You're not explaining how is that hurting someone who doesn't care about copyright or proprietary software. It only hurts someone who has premeditated intention to make a proprietary fork/derivative work.
@namark
That would depend on which varient of the GPL. In some cases you cant even link to the code, in other cases it includes derrivative work.
Yes I am aware that is the "whole point", and that whole point is why the vast majority of the open source community is dropping the GPL in preference of less viral licenses that do not hinder other open-source projects growth and development.
@mewmew @kick @StaticallyTypedRice@mastodon.social