No, it's an exception that lets you decide whether to grant freedoms to *direct* users or to *all* users.
This is a point where the renaming of free software to open source software dalla short. Free software is about users not about recipients of code.
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Ensuring that everybody gets to have exactly the same freedoms is the opposite of preventing X from doing Y. Sure it's possible to use it as a *means* of preventing X from doing Y, but it is a constructive way to introduce such limitations because it builds a level playing field.
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No, because *everybody* benefits from them. But FWIW I've been writing GPL software for over 20 years and I don't even work for Amazon or any other CSP so perhaps you're thinking of someone else.
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GPL has license incompatibilities even with popular licenses also considered Free Software licenses. It isn't a theoretical issue. As one example, you can't use Linux kernel code in glibc or vice versa. It definitely restricts more than just distributing proprietary code with it.
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Yes, on a licence-by-license basis the obligations that the community has generally accepted are sometimes incompatible with the goals for a particular package (like glibc), or impossible to satisfy when combined together (like GPLv2-only + Apache 2.0)
apache.org/licenses/GPL-c
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These incompatibilities wouldn't exist if GPL didn't have non-free usage restrictions. By simply forbidding restrictions it doesn't enforce, it's a non-free license itself even if you make an exception for enforcing that the software remains under your definition of freedom.
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For me, it has been (for decades) a matter of semantics. Often copyleft licenses are called "restrictive". Yes, the obligations of copyleft licenses /could/ be viewed as restrictive on the recipient's "free usage" of the software.
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Another way of saying restrictive is non-free. I don't think copyright is legitimate in the first place.
I see no problem with someone not releasing their source code. The problem is a law disallowing you from reverse engineering and copying it. That's what restricts freedom.
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GPL may have been intended to subvert copyright law.
In practice, look at how often GPL is used with copyright assignment, dual licensing, etc. as part of upholding a business model through copyright law.
Often used because it's the most restrictive thing that FSF says is free.
I'll reluctantly contribute to a GPLv2 project, but not so much GPLv3, and it's out of the question if they use copyright assignment. There's no way that I'll contribute to any project where I don't get their code under comparable terms to what they offer to me.
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So the problem is not the GPL but CLAs. Which is not inconsistent with what Matt said: if you use a CLA to prevent X from doing Y you are not understanding open source.
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I consider the license incompatibilities to be a serious problem. I fully understand why they forbid having an immutable root of trust due to their goals, but that's also a problem from my perspective.
I have a problem with copyright assignment too, but not only with the GPL.
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