You had me up to the end of your third paragraph, then you dropped off a cliff. You're free to believe and think what you want, of course, but the whole point

You had me up to the end of your third paragraph, then you dropped off a cliff. You're free to believe and think what you want, of course, but the whole point of the GPL is make sure that the code is "paid forward", and not locked up somewhere along the chain. The GPL is there so that future up-and-coming curious kids can see the code, and learn from it - much like you did. I grew up in a slightly different world. The GPL first came about in 1989; I was a sophomore in high school, and had no idea about it. The "free software" code I learned from was printed in magazines, that you typed in. As time wore on, though, something along the line changed - code to type in was getting less, and proprietary was growing. I held some of that at bay with my Amiga (which still carried some of the spirit in the magazines of the time), but still change kept coming. Several years went by, until in about 1995 I was introduced to Linux by a friend of mine (who, interestingly, I met via a 2600 meetup) - and also to the GPL by extension. Here was an entire operating system I could see the code of! Amazing! It was all there - out in the open - for me to play with, learn from, and modify as needed or desired! Freedom! All I had to do was agree to pay it forward... ...and I'm ok with that. I don't want a younger person like me to be stuck in the dim place again, without access to the code to learn from. I also want them to experience the thrill of having the code available to work with. I don't want anyone - myself or others - to take that away. And believe me, if a corporation really wanted to, they could work to lock up non-GPL'd works. All they need to do is become much more popular, and let the original work wither on the vine. It may take decades for that to happen (BSD vs OS-X?) - but it can happen. They can wait. But that kid 50 or 100 years from now? What about him or her?