> Most people who are seriously involved in open source know that GPL is ironically one of the least free licenses. That's one way of looking at it. But anothe

> Most people who are seriously involved in open source know that GPL is ironically one of the least free licenses. That's one way of looking at it. But another way is that GPL increases the freedom (by pulling contributions back into the open source), instead of limiting it, which is what would happen if no user was obligated to contribute back. It's about the possibilities, not limits, as some would say. I've been around long enough (since the days Stallman introduced GPL) and do note a causal relationship between GPL and the blossoming of OSS. In no other field do you have people freely giving their endeavors back to the public, like GPL does.