The "spirit of the GPL" is invoked a lot here, however you have to consider that...
MongoDB Inc does NOT play by the same rules as everyone else because they own the copyright.
When a piece of software is useful on its own and survives, without dual licensing from the copyright holder, then and only then we can talk about the spirit of the GPL.
Also people here seem to be confused. The GPL is a super permissive license because it allows you to use it for whatever purpose. You can use it for commercial purposes, you can use it for controlling sharks with lasers to conquer the world, you can use it in combination with any other software or hardware package, doesn't matter. This was by design.
The GPL is just a copyright license, not an EULA and that's part of its genius.
Now you can say that this company or that have been circumventing GPL, but I think that AGPL licenses have been an abomination, a scurge on this industry, only used to lure developers into dual licensing deals and having nothing to do with actual Free Software.
And now we are seeing the effect of allowing AGPL. For one I see an entire forum of really smart individuals that don't really know what the spirit of GPL is, yet we talk about it.
MongoDB Inc does NOT play by the same rules as everyone else because they own the copyright.
When a piece of software is useful on its own and survives, without dual licensing from the copyright holder, then and only then we can talk about the spirit of the GPL.
Also people here seem to be confused. The GPL is a super permissive license because it allows you to use it for whatever purpose. You can use it for commercial purposes, you can use it for controlling sharks with lasers to conquer the world, you can use it in combination with any other software or hardware package, doesn't matter. This was by design.
The GPL is just a copyright license, not an EULA and that's part of its genius.
Now you can say that this company or that have been circumventing GPL, but I think that AGPL licenses have been an abomination, a scurge on this industry, only used to lure developers into dual licensing deals and having nothing to do with actual Free Software.
And now we are seeing the effect of allowing AGPL. For one I see an entire forum of really smart individuals that don't really know what the spirit of GPL is, yet we talk about it.