On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:30:26 -0500, "Dan Armbrust" <daniel.armbrust.list at gmail.com> said: > And that's exactly why most programmers (employed by companies) don't > use GPL software in their software. Its too restrictive. > > In past jobs, I have written a lot of software > that was opensource. Our goal was for everyone to be able to use our > software, individuals and companies. The restrictions introduced by > GPL mean that we could not use any GPL software - because our software > was required to be more free than GPL allows. > >The restrictions are silly. Why would > you want to cut your software off from 90% of your potential users? > Sure, there are arguments that they might release their own product > based on it... but, that doesn't seem to happen in practice. There is nothing restrictive about GPL. Restriction implies that you're being denied the exercise of an action. GPL doesn't deny you anything. It imposes obligation. There's a difference between the two. As for why one would subject themselves to these obligations, there are many reasons developers do this. Many do it because they feel that the only way to ensure computing freedom is for certain obligations to be imposed on developers. In an ideal world, one would not have to impose these obligations but we live in a world where proprietary software marginalizes computing freedom and it is felt that the best way to spread computing freedom is to have those who benefit from that freedom, to have them also grant that freedom to others. The addage "freedom is not free" applies.