> GPL was a clever hack to use copyright against itself with an infectious license. This is a naive understanding and interpretation of GPL, in all its flavors

> GPL was a clever hack to use copyright against itself with an infectious license. This is a naive understanding and interpretation of GPL, in all its flavors. Or maybe I misunderstand you argument. The copyright owner of some work is free to offer that work under multiple, different licenses in parallel, to their liking. They can leverage GPL strategically for e.g. providing a free, easy-to-evaluate library with the "if you use it under GPL terms, you have to GPL your work as well" condition/caveat. For any library user / customer that does not want to be bound to the GPL terms (e.g. a closed-source software which a company does not want to share for free with their own paying customers and competitors), the copyright owner is free to offer an alternative proprietary commercial license. This is only one way how GPL can actually leverage copyright and use it financially beneficially to the owner, rather than use "copyright against copyright".