Re: blacklash against GPL viral clause
Stallman "lost the argument"? Really? I find it thoroughly amusing to read this on a site where so many people apparently understand (and often fierily advocate) the need for privacy in spite of there not being much in the way of horror stories to illustrate their point. GPL is rather like that - it is very much needed in spite of remaining unnecessary most of the time; it protects against things that lie in wait on roads the proprietary software world simply ended up choosing not to walk down most of the time.
That is not to say I believe any piece of software, no matter how modest, absolutely needs to be GPL. If all you care about is having your code used as widely as possible - by all means, go Apache / MIT / BSD / public domain / whatever. More power to you. Then again, when you go to all the trouble to freely donate a collectively ginormous amount of man-hours to build an operating system only to see a hardware manufacturer tack its proprietary stuff to it and sell it back to you as a black box you are not supposed to be able to mess with as you please, you might understandably get a bit miffed.
Also, you may choose not to care what others might build and hoard from code they were given freely, but you only have that choice as long as you truly need nothing from the world outside. Out here in the real world that essentially never happens for any collectively developed project of any significant size; who else might try competing for whatever you need (whether it's visibility, donations, contributor support or something else) using your own work against you can easily become an issue you cannot afford to not deal with.
GPL is that basic lock on your door - it might not keep someone with a bump key out of your home if they're devious and determined enough, but it does at least spell out where you stand, and should at least keep honest people honest...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
