I understand the view that state sanctioned violence is bad. But right now, this is not our biggest problem. Corporate violence is. Granted, states do give c

I understand the view that state sanctioned violence is bad. But right now, this is not our biggest problem. Corporate violence is. Granted, states do give corporation power by enforcing laws that suits them. But they also keep them in check: there are anti-monopoly laws, people aren't allowed to enslave themselves by contract… Let's get rid of corporations before we get rid of the state. This is why I have absolutely no problem with the GPL. The only meaningful way to infringe it is to use GPL code to make proprietary stuff. Presumably to make money —wait, no, to extract money. The worst potential offenders would be big corporations, who can do many bad things with proprietary (or secret) software. I mean, just look at Gmail: its purpose it for Google to read your e-mail so it can send you more effective ads. (I know no Google employee will actually read your email. It's all automated. Which makes things worse: if you can search for unicyclists to sell them juggling balls, you can search for dissenters to rat them out.) In our ongoing fight against power-hungry corporations, the GPL is at worst a necessary evil. We need state sanctioned violence to prevent the likes of Apple, Microsoft, or Monsanto from enslaving us all. It's a double edged sword, but it's the only one we've got. (I'd like to avoid contemplating the more… direct approaches for now.)