@frox@tooting.ch Sure. It’s been a while, but these are some off the top of my head.
A long time ago, early ‘80s, RMS used to sell tapes of Emacs code, and this frames the outlook of the GPL license. He used to do fairly well with this from what I’ve read.
The GPL defines distribution as external distribution, and corps, like Google, have used this loophole to modify the code without having to distribute their changes. The APGL is better about this, but there are still ways around the license.
The GPL doesn’t specify the code released to the public has to be complete or buildable by the public. Parts can be left out, and the tooling to build the project doesn’t have to be public. VS Code is a good example of this. The code in the repo is not a complete project. It’s “open source”, but getting an exact copy of the binary as shipped by MS is not possible by building VS Code from the code repo. Granted the industry needs to do better about creating reproducible builds, and that muddies the waters a little bit.
Next, GPL allows for code which is available on request. I’ve personally seen a “open source” company use this to restrict access to their GPL code, and OpenBSD used to razz Linux distros about having a public CVS server. Plus the recent moves by RH, in regards to RHEL sources, is exactly how the GPL is supposed to be used.
The FUD around the GPL makes it sound scarier than what it is. It’s really pretty mild, and it’s more copyright of center than copyleft.
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