[dotancohen]

  > any time a CAD package that was "free" or low price became reasonably competitive, one of the existing CAD
  > vendors would buy out the developers and quietly smother it or turn it into a feeder for their "real" product.

And now you witness the power of the GPL.

Say what you will about RMS's personality, he was a genius at foreseeing what could be and developing tools robust enough to combat the best funded legal and social attacks.

[delfinom]

Nah, GPL is still shitty, it's enforcement is a joke and I have numerous examples of large companies abusing it even now. And it doesn't stop the developer buyout and forks scenario, just makes the fork inconvenient.

We poisoned pilled KiCad even further by getting it trademarked under the Linux Foundation. That's a whole extra layer of protection.

[xondono]

GPL is not a magic spell, the other open source alternatives didn’t disappear, they were rendered obsolete.