> it's commercially recognized as so restrictive it is an effective tool to make people pay for your software.
How does it do that?
Speaking from personal experience, there are multiple companies making tens of millions a year from selling products based on my GPL'd software. In every case, they have additional proprietary work in addition to the GPLd software that makes a "product", and not just a "tar.gz" download.
There are companies offering free downloads of GPLd versions of their software, and paid downloads of their proprietary software.
And nothing forces a company to use GPL software. If they don't like the GPL license on my software, they're free to write their own, or find a BSD licensed replacement.
A lot of the anti-GPL complaints I've seen amount to "I can see the software, but I can't use it under terms of my choosing, so I'm mad at the authors for choosing a 'bad' license." Which seems to be the case here.
Take a step back and ask yourself, what is the goal of the FSF?
Free. Software.
Not 'make life easier for some people who use GPL software'.
Not 'enforce GPL license agreements'.
Not 'prevent some people from using some software unless they agree to some license'.
Free. Software.
That is, software you are free to modify, change or use, without restriction and without having to pay for it.
People who are 'pro-GPL' pull out all of these crazy business reasons about competitive advantages and changing the way people do things to encourage commercial entities to contribute to open source and be good community members; but I've come to the conclusion it's all a load of rubbish.
I believe in free software, and I'm happy to make my software free.
...but the GPL isnt free and doesn't support the community.
So... if you use it, and like it... go for it; but community is important, and I, for one, have gone from zero interest in rethinkDB to be interested in using it and being a contributor.
So; take what I said worth a grain of salt; but the anti-GPL people out there aren't all business people angry they can't make their LOB apps with an AGPL dependency; there are also people, like me, who care about free software, and think that the GPL harms the community and actively discourages community contributions.
> That is, software you are free to modify, change or use, without restriction
The FSF has a different definition of "free software". They don't want you to get software for free, and then modify it, turn around and restrict it's distribution for other people.
> there are also people, like me, who care about free software, and think that the GPL harms the community and actively discourages community contributions.
The only proof you've shown is that people like you don't like the GPL. That's all well and good as a personal opinion, but it doesn't show that the GPL harms the community or actively discourages community contributions.
> The FSF has a different definition of "free software". They don't want you to get software for free, and then modify it, turn around and restrict it's distribution for other people.
They don't want you to do that, but their definition of "free software" doesn't exclude licenses that allow it.
> Take a step back and ask yourself, what is the goal of the FSF?
> Free. Software.
The name suggests that, but the substance of their advocacy and actions suggests something slightly different; their goal is not to promote Free software, instead, it is to fight against non-Free software.
Which is why they generally argue that licenses which they recognize as Free but which allow non-Free derivatives are dangerous: more Free software is not their goal, less non-Free software is the goal.
How does it do that?
Speaking from personal experience, there are multiple companies making tens of millions a year from selling products based on my GPL'd software. In every case, they have additional proprietary work in addition to the GPLd software that makes a "product", and not just a "tar.gz" download.
There are companies offering free downloads of GPLd versions of their software, and paid downloads of their proprietary software.
And nothing forces a company to use GPL software. If they don't like the GPL license on my software, they're free to write their own, or find a BSD licensed replacement.
A lot of the anti-GPL complaints I've seen amount to "I can see the software, but I can't use it under terms of my choosing, so I'm mad at the authors for choosing a 'bad' license." Which seems to be the case here.