alt Hacker NewsThe fact that very large corporations are willing to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate software is exactly why the GPL is not irrelevant.
What makes the GPL irrelevant is AI. AI in it's current incarnation is basically a magic copyright remover. It can memorize all the patterns, tricks, algorithms, and architecture of open source software and implement it again. In a few years you won't need git because you will just have an AI stamp out a git compatible tool if you need one.
So if you care about Freedom, we need to move the battle from making sure you can get a copy of the source code to git, to making sure you can get a copy of the weights of the AI you are using to create software on demand.
> The fact that very large corporations are willing to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate software is exactly why the GPL is not irrelevant.
No, it's the opposite. The premise of copyleft is forcing the dependents to contribute back to the community. If the corporations are writing proprietary replacements instead of contributing, copyleft has failed to deliver on its premise.
In practice, permissively-licensed projects get more contributions back and benefit the community more. Simple as that.