So whats the issue ? Whether one should pick GPL for his own software. ANSWER: NO.
Most worthwhile open source contributions are paid by commercial companies. And if given a choice they will spend their money in contributing to BSD/MIT softwares rather than GPL. By picking GPL you would be decreasing potential contributions.
We havnt even discussed the elephent in the room. How your project can turn into legal battle ground, divide the community and fill the maillist and issue tracker with nonsense rather than actual work. Or how *GPL licence is so complex and still there is no common consensus on its interpretation. Or how little it is tested in courts and even that in just two countries. Or what GPLv4 turned out to be and would it recieve the same fate as GPLv3.
I shouldn't be getting drawn into this but here goes.
The issue is freedom and IP rights.
Maybe you are missing some fundamental understanding about IP rights. If person A (might be an individual or a company) writes some software it is person A's IP with person A's copyright and they have the right to choose its licence according to their own preferences. If person B writes some other software they can want to use person A's library, however, person B has no fundamental right to use person A's IP. This right can only be derived from person A's permission which is often supplied for software in the form of a licence.
Some people like the idea of their software never ending up in a proprietary product so they choose the GPL. Others don't care so they choose liberal licences. Others want to make a dollar every time someone else uses their software so they choose proprietary licences. Other don't care about non-commercial usage but want to make a dollar every time someone else makes a dollar using their IP - they might choose dual AGPL+proprietary. Others might like to licence only for use in space/underwater/1000m above sea level/on a train again their choice not mine or yours. Even Richard Stallman recommends more liberal licences in some scenarios and actually ffmpeg might class as one of those (analogous to ogg vorbis).
In summary: In the current world people are free to choose how other people use their IP.
> We havnt even discussed the elephent in the room. How your project can turn into legal battle ground, divide the community and fill the maillist and issue tracker with nonsense rather than actual work. Or how *GPL licence is so complex and still there is no common consensus on its interpretation. Or how little it is tested in courts and even that in just two countries. Or what GPLv4 turned out to be and would it recieve the same fate as GPLv3.
With the state of software patents any project under any licence can turn into a legal battle ground.
Most worthwhile open source contributions are paid by commercial companies. And if given a choice they will spend their money in contributing to BSD/MIT softwares rather than GPL. By picking GPL you would be decreasing potential contributions.
We havnt even discussed the elephent in the room. How your project can turn into legal battle ground, divide the community and fill the maillist and issue tracker with nonsense rather than actual work. Or how *GPL licence is so complex and still there is no common consensus on its interpretation. Or how little it is tested in courts and even that in just two countries. Or what GPLv4 turned out to be and would it recieve the same fate as GPLv3.