This probably isn't the forum for it, but I'm going to spout off for
a moment, anyway...
The GPL *is* Open Source... and the only truly Open Source is the
code under the GPL. The absolutely incredible success of Open
Source we're seeing right now is 100% thanks to the GPL. The
reason free software is winning is simple... any code put under
the GPL belongs to *us*, everybody, the people, forever. Because
once something is put under the GPL it can never be taken away,
the body of truly free software can only increase... in quantity,
and by distillation, in quality.
This is what the GPL was designed to accomplish. It was done
well... it is the minimal set of restrictions one can place on a
copyrighted work that will guarantee that one thing: that it
belongs to us all forever. This is all it does, and it does this
completely.
And because this ever growing body of work belongs to us all
we are all willing to contribute and help it continue to grow.
Sometimes, maybe, we think we'd rather make some money of our
work in a direct fashion, by controlling and selling it, but
then it will be a fleeting work, a work which will have come
and gone and not added to the body of what is out there forever
owned by us all. Some of us do both... we add a little to the
free software and we hoard a little of our work. But the
free software will endure and the hoarded software will pass.
More and more people see that getting rich by hoarding software
is getting harder than it used to be, and anyway it's not very
satisfying. So we chose to contribute to the body of free
software instead.
But there are some out there who will take any opportunity
to enrich themselves off others work and if we don't protect
free software from those they will take advantage at the first
opportunity. The GPL protects free software from those parasitic
opportunists. There is no other license which achieves this
protection as simply and as thoroughly.
The CDDB debacle is an incredibly powerful argument for why we
need the GPL.
Long live the GPL.
Ciao,
Jürgen