[nine_k]

I still think that GPL was instrumental at getting linux everywhere, while *BSD, technically superior in 1990s, never attracted as many contributions, especially corporation-backed. GPL serves as a sort of mutual-assured-destruction setup that prevents making proprietary forks and thus incentivizing big players to contribute to the common, free cause.

I think that making the very forces of copyright and profit-seeking work successfully for the benefit of free, universally available software is a feat of rare ingenuity and understanding how humans think and act.