If you failed Ethics 101 (sociopaths, raise your hand) or are not one to philosophize, you can safely quit reading here. I love ethics, and my sense of ethics

If you failed Ethics 101 (sociopaths, raise your hand) or are not one to philosophize, you can safely quit reading here. I love ethics, and my sense of ethics leads me to use the GPL. I'm a consequentialist/utilitarian, and that tells me that I should behave in a way that maximizes the utility of the software I release. I think that the GPL has a fine record of causing excellent-quality free software to come into being, so I use that; it's a strategic choice. It's possible that someone could make an argument that releasing software under a BSD license, or indeed public domain, results in a greater volume of free software than when you use the GPL. I've never heard that argument made, though, and the success of Linux contrasted with the failure (as free software) of FreeBSD is one example of why I'd be suspicious of that claim. Since we're talking about ethics, we could try to work out where yours diverge. It sounds like you might be a deontologist of some kind -- you say you're worried about people experiencing violence as a result of decisions people make to release GPL'd software, but that's extremely rare, because no-one forces anyone else to violate the license of GPL'd code; instead, people will just use other code instead. If the outcome you're fixated on bothers you even if GPL software doesn't actually cause anyone to lose everything in a lawsuit (are there any documented examples of that happening?), you don't appear to be a consequentialist, or to choose your behavior based on expected consequences. What do you choose it on instead?