I would say that the "permissive" licenses are the ones that ignore incentive structures and expect people to contribute back because of feelies (if you think t

I would say that the "permissive" licenses are the ones that ignore incentive structures and expect people to contribute back because of feelies (if you think that works, I encourage you to go boot a copy of PureDarwin). GPL on the other hand is a brilliant hack of copyright law that has extremely successfully aligned business incentive structures to the point that Microsoft is a Linux contributor. I really think you are selling Stallman's pragmatism short. While he very laudably tries to live by his own principles as uncompromisingly as possible, it's clear that he sees social systems as things to be engineered, with moral pressure being but one tool of many. Certainly his grasp of such systems is not perfect. But I think he's done astoundingly well for a reclusive, autistic nerd with no social skills.