I had a period where I didn't really understand the GPL or what it was trying to do. All I knew is that it was ""viral"" (whatever the hell that meant!) and that, supposedly, trying to use it would forever bind you and your creation to who knows what unforeseen legal horrors. I mean, look how long it is! It's frightening! I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it at first.

Then I got a clue and actually read it. It's quite straightforward. For almost all serves and purposes it's basically just MIT plus copyleft. All the legal density is just an effort to squash every conceivable loophole to the copyleft directive. I'm no longer afraid of it, I think it's pretty cool.

The thing I want to know now is why so many projects think their shit don't stink and that they need to pollute the FOSS ecosystem with their own stupid permissive license that is functionally identical to the MIT license.

So like... and hear me out, software has just changed over time. Way more people use and develop it now, so it kind of makes sense that it would revolve around what most people are interested in. That's not really hippie liberal progressive stuff. I'm in it for that. I'm all about the GPL. But while we are a relative minority, it's not like our absolute numbers have dropped or even stagnated.

I'd say we're growing at a steady pace. I think it happens with pretty much all new forms of art. Look at video games, movies, music, etc.