| They can't be clear, because the law is manifestly unclear. The theory they give for disallowing non-GPL code to link to GPL libs is that the linking process involves copyrighted code and materials in the header files and interface (API). This is, of course, what the Oracle v Google case was all about. The code in question is even (dual) licensed under GPL! If the US Supreme Court can't give a straight answer to whether APIs are copyrightable, the FSF is wise not to give any advice that would potentially put their proverbial foot in their mouth. It's not a new theory of mine either - https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20031206211900.GA9034@thunk.org... Of course, the legal uncertainty doesn't stop RMS and his friends from spreading FUD about GPL "virality" because that theory helps making everything GPL. That said, I think GPLv2 is generally OK if you believe in ideas of "Copyleft". In retrospect I think it's kind of sad that GPL slowly fell out of favor by devs because of all the complications of the GPL (of which some you mentioned). I remember in the early 2000s almost everything was GPLv2 by default. The world swung to permissive licenses after GPLv3 became too ambitious and made the licensing issues too complicated for the average software dev to care about. I suspect a lot of resentment that OSS devs don't get compensated is partially due to the ecosystem giving a lot of peer pressure for devs to use a permissive license by default (where they might actually have intended something like copyleft or non-commercial use licenses). I know a significant part of my salary is paid for by the productivity of permissive licensed OSS (i.e. my employer doesn't have to pay OSS, so presumably part of the saving goes to paying me), but still these "what ifs" are still worth thinking about, and maybe there's still a chance that some issues could be addressed. |