I had a very similar view once, and have since understood that this is mainly a difference in perspective:

It's easy as a developer to slip into a role where you want to build/package (maybe sell) some software product with minimal obligations. BSD-likes are obviously great there.

But the GPL follows a different perspective: It tries to make sure that every user of any software product is always capable of tinkering and changing it himself, and the more permissive licenses do not help there because they don't prevent (or even discourage!) companies from just selling you stripped and obfuscated binary blobs that put you fully at the vendors mercy.

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dmezzetti 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I understand people want to control what happens once they build something. Too often do you see startups go with a permissive model only to go to a more restrictive model once something like that happens. Then it ends up upsetting a lot of people.

I'm of the opinion that what I build, I'm willing to share it and let others use it as they see fit even if it's not to my advantage.

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myrmidon 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the GPL mainly suffers with startups because it makes monetization pretty difficult. Some "commercial" uses of it are also giving it somewhat of an undeserved bad taste (when companies use it to benefit from free contributions while preventing competitors from getting any use out of it).

My view is that every project and library where I can peruse the source is a gift/privilege. GPL restrictions I view as a small price to "pay it forward", and to keep that privilege for all wherever possible.

	▲	dmezzetti 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Fair enough. You'd like to hope that there is a voluntary "pay it back and forward" mentality. But I understand that is a leap of faith with a lot of blind trust.