4 ms·

No, their motivation is to preserve your personal freedoms with your own software and hardware.

• nevir 13y ago
  As a dev, I view the GPL's primary motivation to be about _forcing_ downstream developers to "contribute back". The additional freedom for a user to tinker with that software is a byproduct that isn't very compelling. Note that I'm not trying to suggest that I don't find open source software very compelling - just that the trade off doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather be generally trusting of downstream devs; it pays more dividends in terms of goodwill (and subjectively, contributions).
  • quadrangle 13y ago
    It happens that GPL encourages continued sharing, but that's not it's motivation. The motivation is strictly to prevent people from using the software in a way to restrict others.
  • krichman 13y ago
    Note that it only forces you to contribute back in the event that you not contributing back would restrict another's freedoms with their hardware or software.
  • belorn 13y ago
    You are perfectly free to keep your contributions to yourself and never distribute anything. GPL only jumps in when you are distributing code further downstream, as not distributing code along would refuses those users the same access and freedom to developing the program as you got.