I'm open to a compelling argument for why the GPL is better than a license that basically says "you can do whatever you want with this." (From the perspective of deterring the locking down of computers by corporations.)
No matter how idealistic any large group of young hackers will want to be, fiduciary duty will always trump everything when you play with business. You can love the GPL as much as Stallman himself, but when you're grasping for any edge you can find over your competition, you'll think twice before shipping her a tarball of your source.
Reusing GPL'd code forces developers to in turn release their code; more free licenses don't have this effect.
Anyway, not to play thread police, it just seemed to me that it was veering off into another direction. I'm cranky in the mornings!
Contrast this with proprietary software.
There are restrictions for developers, namely that you can't link GPLed code to non-GPLed or GPLable code, and that you can't close the source.
Liberal licenses are easier on developers, but they don't guarantee that the source will remain open. Software is ubiquitous nowadays, and most appliances use closed source software of unknown quality and probity. There's spyware in every cell phone, for example.
More GPL makes a better world, overall.
By all means fire up a new thread and I'm sure you guys will wrap this up in no time. But for the sake of the rest of us here to discuss the topic we're discussing, please don't drop a little religious war into the middle of it.
You're the one who conflates licenses and religion, and who refuse to even discuss the topic.
The choice of software licenses is far more nuanced than religion. There's a lot of misinformation around the GPL, and it doesn't hurt to talk about it.