alt Hacker News> if I spend a few years writing some code, you should get to copy it for your own interests
If you publish the code, there's an argument to be made that yes, others should freely use it: if you could (or did) monetize the code yourself you wouldn't publish it. If you didn't, or failed trying to monetize it, maybe it's better for society if everyone else also gets to try?
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Right, but what incentives are we really pushing here?
If the only way to make any amount of money or, at least, not be stolen from, is to keep everything internal and be protectionist, then where is the progress?
So much of the modern world is built on open source. Do we really want every company and their mom recreating the world from scratch just so they don't get fucked over? Would things like the iPhone even exist in such a world?
I do not even like the GPL but there are other forms of exchange other than monetary.
The license outlines the conditions of use. An argument could be made that ignoring the license means you are not paying the price specified.