I generally agree with the idea of the GPL but the thing I would encourage everyone to consider is: are you really going to enforce it when someone doesn't comp

I generally agree with the idea of the GPL but the thing I would encourage everyone to consider is: are you really going to enforce it when someone doesn't comply? If not, consider just adding a sentence (or more) to the top of the MIT license or public domain release that you would really like people to share their modifications but are not going to force them to do so. Otherwise, the main effects of using the GPL are: 1) Projects that are actually open source but want to be available for closed source use will not use your code (maybe some people want this) 2) Lots of people who would contribute changes anyway will spend time figuring out what the GPL means in detail (it is not short) 3) Quite a few comanies will still use your code without releasing changes since they know that few projects try to enforce the GPL (or any other open source license) 4) It could potentially be helpful in a BSD lawsuit type situation, where companies that sue over copyright (or patents) will themselves violate the license of code that they use I'm just saying keep in mind that a license does not automatically make people follow it and if you aren't willing to attempt to enfoce it legally then at least consider using a very short license.