If I am contributing to a community project, made by the people for the people, GPL protects my work from being stolen by corporations that pack it up and sell it for a price.
GPL means you work on something and in return you get something from someone else that improved on your work, you can't keep any published change private.
GPL also means that if someone forks the original source code and makes substantial changes, the subsequent work must be licensed under the GPL (what MS called the "viral nature"), nobody can re-license it, unless all the other contributors agree to it.
GPL software cannot be acquired to kill it, like Google or Apple do all the time, or severely cripple it after the acquisition.
It's a form of social contact that guarantees that no one gets screwed or exploited.
It grows on users' needs not on VC growth needs.
That's how Linux got big.
BSD was already 20 years old when Linux started and yet BSD is nowhere near the popularity of Linux.
GPL means you work on something and in return you get something from someone else that improved on your work, you can't keep any published change private.
GPL also means that if someone forks the original source code and makes substantial changes, the subsequent work must be licensed under the GPL (what MS called the "viral nature"), nobody can re-license it, unless all the other contributors agree to it.
GPL software cannot be acquired to kill it, like Google or Apple do all the time, or severely cripple it after the acquisition.
It's a form of social contact that guarantees that no one gets screwed or exploited.
It grows on users' needs not on VC growth needs.
That's how Linux got big.
BSD was already 20 years old when Linux started and yet BSD is nowhere near the popularity of Linux.