[senko]

Awesome. If you think that is stopping anyone, here's a challenge for you:

GNU Bash is GPL. You can run Bash (and many other Linux commands) in Windows through Windows Subsystem for Linux. In fact, WSL is a nice example of Microsoft doing embrace & extend.

The challenge: find the Microsoft's published code for Bash.

[kube-system]

WSL does not include bash. When you use bash from within WSL, it is using the version of bash that was included in the upstream distribution of linux you have installed. If you are using a Debian based image, to get the source code run the following:

    apt-get source bash

You can also reference the website of the distribution you have chosen to install, e.g. https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/bash

[senko]

My point exactly (notice I didn't say MS distributes bash - it doesn't, as you pointed out).

Bash being GPL doesn't stop MS from benefiting from it by providing it to WSL users which make WSL more valuable for them. It also (as we talked in the other comment) doesn't prevent Amazon from running a database and charging people for it.

So what's this great advantage of GPL that it would make it worthwhile to keep the entire copyright system just so we could still have GPL?

If you dig around in its origin, GPL was concieved as a tool to "fight system from within system". If there's no system, you don't have to fight the system.

[kube-system]

> notice I didn't say MS distributes bash

Then why did you ask for something if you knew it didn't exist???

Overall I think you are mistaken about the purpose of the GPL. It does not, nor has it ever intended to prohibit commercial activities. RMS and FSF have been pretty clear about this for many decades. And in fact, they are against the idea of licenses that prohibit commercial use.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

The point of GPL is to enforce a specific worldview of developer freedoms through the application of copyleft.

[senko]

I'm trying to understand the actual harm you think would come to free software if in fact there were no copyright, hence no GPL.

[kube-system]

The reason that large successful projects like Linux are so capable is not because it has a price tag of zero (and it often does not), but because of the feedback loop created by the viral-nature of the software license.

The vast majority of Linux is not a volunteer project -- but software developed by commercial software engineers who are being paid by a company to write software. Before copyleft, the idea that they would voluntarily share source code was laughable. The only reason they do is because they are legally required to do so.

This viral nature of copyleft creates a positive feedback loop:

1. Company uses software because it is free and solves a problem

2. they need a modification so they make it

3. they contribute back to the project because it is required by the copyright license

4. the project becomes more valuable at solving more problems that other companies have

5. Go to step 1

Breaking this feedback loop would put companies back to their natural state of not sharing. The result is that the software landscape would start to look a lot like the 80s and 90s again.

Without copyright, copyleft would not exist. And without copyleft, Linux would have been a hobby OS that died out in the early 90s. We'd be using things like Windows Server, Unix, etc. And to protect their business in the absence of copyright, they'd have heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, cryptographic licensing, etc.

[senko]

This entire comment is completely backwards. Linux gained momentum first, then it was adopted by the wider industry.

It's much easier to upstream your desired changes than maintain a separate fork (closed or otherwise) long-term. Additionally, many of the contributors have been using it for own servers, not required to contribute back.

Things like NVidia and other closed drivers show you can bolt a non-open part to the GPL code if you try enough.

> And without copyleft, Linux would have been a hobby OS that died out in the early 90s. We'd be using things like Windows Server, Unix, etc.

This ignores the entire existence of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.

> they'd have heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, cryptographic licensing

This ignores the existence of heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, kernel-level anticheat spyware, criminalisation of copyright-circumvention schemes, etc.

At this point, I think you're just trolling, so I'll stop here.