I don't think the author of the GPL would agree with your telling of the origin of it. It was specifically designed to ensure code released under it would remai

I don't think the author of the GPL would agree with your telling of the origin of it. It was specifically designed to ensure code released under it would remain free, including any changes made to it by companies and other developers. The preamble to GPL v1: "To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it." https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-1.0.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-1.0.html To Google v Oracle, that was IIUC down to APIs usage being fair-use, not the code itself.