[binary132]

Isn't that kind of the point?

The purpose of GPL and Free Software (which it has actually had resounding success in) is to develop a free commons which will stay free and not be exploited.

It's not for you to exploit to make a buck, and if that excludes your project, that's fine.

There are lots of things I would never consider free-licensing, but I think people badly miss the point of free software because they are stuck thinking only in terms of their own needs and personal benefit.

Again, if you don't want to use or contribute to free software, that is perfectly reasonable. But just bear in mind that the Linux kernel and GCC are incredibly valuable tools which are firmly in the commons and will remain free, and which you have benefited enormously from the use and free availability of.

[ynniv]

  It's not for you to exploit to make a buck

Of course it is... That’s what Google does, that’s what all companies who are large enough to know how to work around the GPL do. Every company who uses it on their own servers without telling you, or even compiles and distributes it hoping that no one notices, does. And when they do, they sometimes contribute resources back to the project, which helps it to thrive.

The GPL is very ideological, and there’s nothing wrong with that but you can see the cost of that right here: where someone pointing out there is a hidden cost is shamed for doing so. Given the chance of contributing code or community to two similar projects, I prefer the one that’s more about building than it is about contracts.

[binary132]

I'm simply explaining the point of GPL. Being able to work around the point doesn't mean it's not the point.

Do you really think it's fine and good for Google to take work explicitly intended by its authors to preserve free computing and work around the licensing to make money without preserving the intent and purpose of its license?

Shaming would be much stronger. I even pointed out that participating in it is totally elective and I personally would not in many cases.

Framing it in terms of your own cost/benefit is missing the point, though, and there is a meaningful and valuable purpose to it outside of maximizing your personal benefit in the moment of choosing a particular library.

[bigstrat2003]

The GPL is not required for such a commons to flourish. Most Rust projects are published under a permissive license, and that scene is flourishing just fine. I think that open source software as a whole, not the GPL specifically, is what has enabled the flourishing you mention. It seems to me that in the counterfactual world where Linus chose to use the BSD license for his kernel, Linux would thrive just as much as it does today.

[MYEUHD]

The reason we have custom roms on android phones, is because of Linux's copyleft license: Phone vendors are required to publish their kernel modifications shipped with their devices. This already reduces e-waste by lowering the purchases of new phones, when old ones are perfectly functional. Thus, copyleft helped the environment

[kelnos]

To me this is also an example of how the GPL fails. The requirement for phone vendors to publish their Linux source trees does in part enable custom ROMs, but vendors still have found ways around the license in the form of proprietary kernel modules. This gives these phones a shelf life: after the latest OS version requires a kernel newer than the one the proprietary modules are shipped with, and efforts to write shims (which are always error-prone and hacky) start to fail, the phone can't even get updated versions of the custom ROM.

[niutech]

It's not GPL's fault, but greedy vendors which don't want to open source their drivers.

[pama]

I don’t like hypothetical counterfactuals but of course it is your choice to use them. It is hard to meaningfully compare recent programs, rust or otherwise, with established behemoths like Linux, gcc, Emacs, etc, that did the heavy lifting and allowed the playing field to remain even over multiple decades. If gcc did not exist it is not clear at all how a hypothetical computerized world would develop.

[binary132]

The point of copyleft is to protect the continued existence and welfare of such a commons. I'm not even necessarily saying it is the only way to achieve a healthy free commons, I'm simply explaining what GPL is for.

That said, do you think it is in fact protecting the user from exploitation, or promoting the health of a free commons, to use "free" software in nonfree products which do not provide their source code to the user nor guarantee the user's ability to study, extend, and modify the software that they are using?

I think the argument for Free Software is at the very least strong and good. There can be other approaches to solving the problems FSF wants to solve, too, but it is a totally valid and non-debatably historically useful position at the very least.