Comment by OkayPhysicist
2 months ago
We have a solution to this. It's called the (L)GPL. If people would stop acting like asking for basic (zero cost) decency in exchange for their gift is tantamount to armed robbery, we could avoid this whole mess.
The GPL doesn't do anything when the project is just used internally by another company.
They never trigger the distribution clauses, and they own the copyrights of all the work being done. So if you NEVER distribute binaries outside your company's walls. The GPL is a giant nothing, for most practical cases.
That's why we're starting to see the AGPL more now. But even then, for INTERNAL applications. It's still a nothing.
The GPL doesn't cure people being greedy. It just changes how they are allowed to be greedy.